Ongoing Support for ITI and Partner in Oromia Region, Ethiopia |
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Tesfaye Tadel, Team Leader of Mass Drug Administration for GTM, assists with the height-based dosing of Zithromax at a clinic in Oromia region. (Photo: Ronald Collins) |
The Lavelle Fund for the Blind has decided to extend its work in Ethiopia through 2013 with ITI and its longtime local partner, Grarbet Tehadiso Mahber (GTM). The decision means increased support for all components of the WHO-supported SAFE strategy, which includes surgery, antibiotics, face-cleansing and environmental improvements. The program in Oromia started in 2008.
Daniel Callahan, board president of the Lavelle Fund for the Blind, said he and several other Lavelle Fund board members were impressed after they visited the ITI-GTM partnership program in Ethiopia. The program staff is “dedicated and highly professional,” he said. “We are proud to be providing anchor support to the program."
The program is in four districts of the Oromia region of Ethiopia, which gets little support in the fight to eliminate blinding trachoma. Ethiopia has the greatest burden of trachoma in Africa, and the Oromia region accounts for 33 percent of the trachoma infection within Ethiopia.
The program was assessed in September 2009 by Catherine Cross, an independent consultant for blindness prevention programs and a new member of ITI’s Technical Expert Committee. She discussed her findings in the Fall 2009 issue of Trachoma Matters.
Progress has been made, but more time is needed to achieve the goals. The plan has been adjusted to improve hygiene and sanitation, and to retain health workers trained to do trichiasis surgery. In addition, the project team will stop distributing pit latrine slabs made of cement, which were too expensive to distribute and construct. A model will be used instead that is made of local materials and more suited to communities in areas that have an acute shortage of water.
Redda Teklehaimanot of GTM said the additional funding from the Lavelle Fund means they will be able to distribute Zithromax in trachoma endemic areas for the recommended 5 years. GTM also has a new personal hygiene and sanitation plan that focuses on “community led total sanitation.” This plan involves training community leaders, including a village leader, teacher or school director, health extension workers, a development agent, a community volunteer and a respected community leader. After they are trained, the team will be responsible for hygiene and sanitation activities in their village. Woreda (sub-district) Health Offices will offer support and schedule quarterly meetings with the local teams so experiences and best practices can be shared.
GTM also plans to train religious leaders in basic hygiene and sanitation, and create a training manual that includes references to good hygiene and sanitation from the Bible and/or Quran. “The role of religious leaders in promoting hygienic practices has been a very successful strategy in other similar projects,” Professor Redda said.
Simple ecological sanitation (eco-san) latrines will be built in four schools, in the hope that students will take home good sanitation and hygiene practices, he said. Families will be encouraged to build traditional pit latrines, hang-washing facilities and refuse pits with locally available, low-cost materials. Technical assistance will be available to help families.
Each village will also have a school club that supports and promotes improved sanitation and hygiene. These clubs will receive assistance so they can promote hygiene through drama, song, poetry and face-washing campaigns in the school and community.
The hope is that the Lavelle Fund-ITI-GTM project can be an example of how scale up can be done in more than 300 districts in the region. If successful, it could be a model for other countries trying to eliminate blinding trachoma by 2020.