WHO Alliance for the Global Elimination of Trachoma: progress report on elimination of trachoma, 2023

This report summarizes application of the SAFE strategy against trachoma during 2023. It includes estimates of the global population at risk of trachoma blindness based on district-by-district data submitted to WHO by national programmes. Summarizing the epidemiological situation in this way is inherently complex because, for any district, up to 3 serial estimates of prevalence may be valid at different times during a calendar year.

If reported in isolation, TF prevalence estimates from impact surveys done after (but in the same calendar year as) antibiotic treatment might (i) be interpreted as indicating that the previous treatment was unjustified and (ii) result in division-by-zero errors in calculations of antibiotic coverage against need. To avoid these problems, the highest TF prevalence estimated for each district in a calendar year (regardless of the date in the year on which that estimate was valid) was used to generate a rolling peak prevalence estimate for 1 January–31 December 2023; these figures were used
as the denominators for calculating intervention coverage. To provide the most up-to-date snapshot of progress towards global elimination of trachoma as a public
health problem, summaries based on district-level
prevalence estimates held in the GET202013 database as
of 15 April 2024 are also included. The point prevalence snapshot for 15 April 2024 can be compared
with that of 25 April 2023.