Associations between Active Trachoma and Community Intervention with Antibiotics, Facial Cleanliness, and Environmental Improvement (A,F,E)

Trachoma is an infectious disease that is cased by a bacterium, Chlamydia trachomatis, and is the leading cause of preventable blindness estimated to be responsible for 3.6% of blindness globally. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends a strategy for trachoma control known as SAFE—surgery, antibiotics, facial cleanliness, and environmental improvement. Regular evaluations of trachoma control activities are advocated for by the WHO for decision making, programme planning, and the rational use of programme resources. We undertook a survey to evaluate the effectiveness of the SAFE strategy following three years of interventions in four districts in Southern Sudan. In this paper, we aimed to find out the relationship between the antibiotics, facial cleanliness, and environmental improvement (A,F,E) and active trachoma signs. Our study revealed that prevalence of active trachoma was less in children who had received treatment with azithromycin, had clean faces, had faces washed more frequently, and used latrines compared to children who had not received these interventions. The study findings are important since they make the case for implementing the A,F,E interventions together

Surgery versus epilation for the treatment of minor trichiasis in Ethiopia: a randomised controlled noninferiority trial.

Trachomatous trichiasis can cause corneal damage and visual impairment. WHO recommends surgery for all cases. However, in many regions surgical provision is inadequate and patients frequently decline. Self-epilation is common and was associated with comparable outcomes to surgery in nonrandomised studies for minor trichiasis (<six lashes touching eye). This trial investigated whether epilation is noninferior to surgery for managing minor trichiasis

Adiposity and cancer risk: new mechanistic insights from epidemiology

Excess body adiposity, commonly expressed as body mass index (BMI), is a risk factor for many common adult cancers. Over the past decade, epidemiological data have shown that adiposity-cancer risk associations are specific for gender, site, geographical population, histological subtype and molecular phenotype. The biological mechanisms underpinning these associations are incompletely understood but need to take account of the specificities observed in epidemiology to better inform future prevention strategies