Two Neglected Tropical Diseases That Cause Blindness Among Children at Risk of Resurgence Due to Aid Cuts

KAMPALA, (March 20, 2025) - A rare tropical disease that is the leading infectious cause of blindness worldwide was halved in one of the world’s worst-affected communities due to foreign aid but is now at risk of resurgence following aid cuts, as is another tropical eye disease, Save the Children said.

Trachoma, a bacterial infection that can lead to irreversible blindness, was blighting the lives of nearly 10% of the community in Uganda’s Karamoja region, one of the worst-affected areas in the world.

In four years, a Save the Children program to reduce trachoma – which disproportionately affects children and their mothers – reached about 58,000 people and reduced prevalence to 5% of the community.

Susan*, 29, told Save the Children staff last year: 
“Our village was in a dire state. It was incredibly dirty, with rampant cases of trachoma and diarrhea. There were no latrines, and the sanitation situation was worse. However, significant changes have occurred since the arrival of the health office, water office, and Save the Children. We now have 50 latrines [in our village], and households without latrines are actively constructing their own, with many nearly finished.”

Aid workers now fear the loss of access to hygiene prevention sessions and support, trachoma drugs, and the termination of latrine construction could lead to a resurgence in the disease, which is spread through flies and is rife in areas with poor hygiene.

The disease first infects the membrane, covers the outside of the eyeball and lines the inner surface of the eyelid. Repeated infections lead to scarring of the upper eyelid, leading to eyelashes curving inwards and rubbing against the cornea, causing intense pain and eventually leading to irreversible blindness.

Famari Barro, Country Director for Save the Children in Uganda, said: “Trachoma has been eliminated in most parts of the world, but in Karamoja, it was blighting almost 10% of the population, mostly women and children. It’s a nasty disease that can cause a lifetime of suffering, but is so easily preventable. This was a real aid success story – rates were going down, and communities were able to keep not just trachoma but other infectious diseases at bay. Closing down this program risks pushing people back into lives of disease and misery.”

Another tropical eye disease, Onchocerciasis, which is known as river blindness, is also at risk of spreading in Tanzania due to the abrupt halt to a Save the Children program tackling neglected tropical diseases.

Again, children are particularly vulnerable to this disease.

Through this program, community health workers were identifying preliminary symptoms of both trachoma and river blindness in remote areas as well as providing access to correct preventative information, medicines and referrals to health facilities in hard-to-reach communities.

River blindness is caused by bites from flies that breed in rapidly flowing rivers, and leads to severe itching, disfiguring skin conditions, and visual impairment, including permanent blindness. It is endemic across Tanzania. Like trachoma, it is preventable, with the World Health Organization (WHO) identifying five countries that are now free of river blindness having successfully implemented elimination programs.

Gabriella Waaijman, Chief Operating Officer at Save the Children, said: “Cutting aid is not just a failure of moral leadership, it is a strategic miscalculation. Failure to tackle these kinds of health crises will taint children’s lives and will come back to bite us all.

“We have years – decades, even – of evidence, recorded not just on spreadsheets on a screen but in the transformation of real human lives, that these programs work to safeguard children and their communities in some of the poorest places in the world.

“We owe children a better future. We owe them a world in which every child’s life truly counts.”