Carter Centre gets US $30 million to fight blindness

The Carter Centre says it has received its largest ever project-specific grant, totalling some US $30 million over the next 10 years, to combat river blindness and trachoma in 15 countries in Africa, the Middle East and Latin America. The grant, from the Lions Clubs International Foundation and the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, will allow the Centre to work with both organisations and other partners over the next five years to develop blindness-prevention programmes in the 15 countries, which include Cameroon, Ethiopia, Ghana, Mali, Nigeria, Sudan and Uganda. The initiative’s target group is more than 110 million people at risk of contracting river blindness and/or trachoma, the Carter Centre said last week in a news release. “This funding allows us to expand our efforts to treat river blindness in Africa and Latin America and to initiate programmes to control trachoma, primarily in Africa,” former US President Jimmy Carter said. Trachoma, the world’s leading cause of preventable blindness, can be avoided through simple hygiene measures such as washing one’s hands and face. River blindness is spread by parasites that enter the body through bites from black flies that breed in fast-flowing water. Victims experience constant itching, skin rashes, eyesight damage and often blindness, the news release said.