The International Trachoma Initiative (ITI) is a New York-based nonprofit that currently works in 15 priority countries in Africa and Asia to eliminate blinding trachoma, which is the world’s leading cause of preventable blindness. Nearly 10 million people worldwide are visually impaired or blind because of trachoma and over 63 million people have the active disease. 56 countries around the world have been identified as having serious levels of blinding trachoma.

ITI has performed over 352,000 sight-saving surgeries and has administered over 77-million Antibiotic treatments.

ITI was founded in 1998 by founding partners, Pfizer Inc. and the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, in response to the World Health Organization’s call to eliminate blinding trachoma by the year 2020.

With the support of ITI, Morocco is now working towards WHO (World Health Organization) certification to signify that blinding trachoma has been eliminated as a public health problem in Morocco. The Gambia, Ghana, Mauritania and Vietnamare on track to eliminate trachoma by the year 2010.

Other countries being assisted include Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mali, Nepal, Niger, Senegal, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, and Guinea-Bissau.
 
ITI works with local, national, and international governments and organizations to implement their SAFE strategy of:

* Surgery
* Antibiotics (Pfizer donated Zithromax)
* Facial cleanliness
* Environmental improvement

Trachoma is an infectious disease of the eye caused by the bacterium Chlamydia trachomatis that can eventually lead to irreversible blindness. The bacterium that causes trachoma can be spread easily by contact with the infected person’s hands or clothing, or may be carried by flies that have come into contact with discharge from the eyes or nose of an infected person.