Trachoma is the world’s leading infectious cause of blindness, yet for decades we have had the antibiotics to treat it. Sightsavers is an international charity dedicated to preventing avoidable blindness and is working in Africa and Asia to eliminate this disease. Their programs are having a significant positive impact. A key to their success is effective use of Geographic Information System (GIS) technology to track and manage both the disease and treatment coverage.
We sat down with Andy Tate, Senior Data and Reporting Advisor for Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTD) at Sightsavers to learn more about their work and how they are leveraging GIS technology from Esri.
Trachoma
Trachoma is a NTD of significant concern and is one of the world’s oldest diseases.
“Trachoma is caused by repeated bacterial infections,” explained Tate. “Over time it will cause scarring to the inner eyelids such that the eyelashes will turn inwards and scrape the eyeball. This will cause irreversible blindness, if not treated.”
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), trachoma is “hyperendemic in many of the poorest and most rural areas of Africa, Central and South America, Asia, Australia, and the Middle East”. The WHO estimates that trachoma causes 1.4% of all blindness worldwide.
Eliminating Trachoma
In 1993, the WHO adopted an effective strategy to control and eliminate trachoma, called SAFE:
- Surgery to treat the blinding stage (trachomatous trichiasis);
- Antibiotics to clear infection, particularly mass drug administration of the antibiotic azithromycin
- Facial cleanliness; and
- Environmental improvement, particularly improving access to water and sanitation
Sightsavers supports national programs across all four elements of the SAFE strategy. For example, they have been working in Malawi in south-eastern Africa since the 1950s and helped to launch the Malawi Trachoma Elimination Programme in 2014. That program recently celebrated an important milestone. On September 21st, 2022 the WHO officially announced that the country had eliminated the disease as a public health problem.
Sightsavers is also supporting Kenya to achieve the same.
Sightsavers Kenya Project
“In Kenya, we’ve been noticing some concerning trends,” said Tate. “We have some areas where we’re seeing persistent trachoma where the level of infectivity has not reduced following multiple years of treatment. We are also seeing a return of the disease in places where the level of infection had been reduced such that drug treatment was no longer required.”
Sightsavers is now working on a project to maximize equitable distribution of trachoma treatment. A key component of this project is GIS technology.
An army of volunteers is required to effectively distribute the antibiotic treatment. These volunteers are called “Community Directed Distributors” (CDDs) and in the project focus areas they have been equipped with mobile devices loaded with two Esri applications:
- ArcGIS Field Maps which helps to guide CDDs to the right communities and households where treatment is needed; and
- Esri Quick Capture Which allows CDDs to easily capture information while onsite
“They use Quick Capture at each household to record whether drugs were delivered, if they were refused, or if no one was home,” elaborated Tate. “Then supervisors will be able to, in real time, track the households, and they’ll be able to direct CDDs to communities and households which may have been missed, thus ensuring that we achieve maximum treatment coverage.”
GIS Improves Sightsavers Efforts
By leveraging GIS technology in Kenya, Sightsavers and the teams on the ground can be more efficient in their use of precious resources. They can send CDDs to specific households where they know treatment is needed and not waste time visiting homes that have already received the antibiotic. Seeing everything on a map also allows for better route planning which maximizes the number of households visited by a CDD while minimizing travel.
Sightsavers is not only using GIS technology in Kenya. They are using satellite imagery and interactive maps to help with identifying nomadic camps. They are also modelling NTD treatment coverage and better communicating the scope and impact of programs through storymaps. Check out their open resource portal for more information: https://ntd-sightsavers.hub.arcgis.com/
Watch the interview with Andy Tate to learn more about:
- The new projects Sightsavers is working on
- What outcomes they hope to achieve for the Kenya project
- How they plan to leverage social media to help combat trachoma
Learn more about Sightsavers: https://www.sightsavers.org/
Learn more about Esri: https://esri.com/health
Esri is a supporter of Healthcare Scene.
