For Immediate Release                                        Media Contacts:
June 23, 2008                                                           For ITI: Geoffrey Knox 212-229-0540
                                                                                   For Izumi: Eliza Petrow 617-292-2333
                                                                                               
International Trachoma Initiative Receives Grant From Izumi Foundation
 to Support 20,000 Sight-Saving Surgeries in Burkina Faso and Niger

(New York, NY—June 23, 2008) –The International Trachoma Initiative (ITI) announced today that it has received a significant grant from the Izumi Foundation to fund 20,000 sight-saving surgeries in Burkina Faso and Niger.  The three-year grant of $448,809 will be used by ITI to assist the ministries of health of both countries to provide eyelid surgeries for people affected by repeated trachoma infections.  Trachoma is the leading cause of preventable blindness in the world today.  The current grant follows two previous grants that the Izumi Foundation has made to ITI for its efforts to eliminate blinding trachoma. 

ITI will use the Izumi Foundation grant to fund mobile surgical “camps” that can reach into rural communities heavily affected by trachoma.  Health care workers will be trained to perform the safe, convenient and cost-effective out-patient surgeries for people suffering from Trachomatous Trichiasis (TT), the advanced and painful phase of trachoma that, if not corrected by surgery, leads to irreversible blindness.  Without such surgeries, these citizens of Niger and Burkina Faso would not only lose their sight but also their ability to earn a living or care for themselves and their families. 

Trachoma affects 63 million people, mostly women and children, in 56 countries. While trachoma can be prevented and cured with inexpensive, time-limited treatment, nearly 10 million people have already lost some or all of their sight to this infectious disease.  Building on trachoma elimination success in Morocco, ITI, as the only non-governmental organization solely dedicated to eliminating blinding trachoma, currently works in 15 countries to facilitate the SAFE strategy.  SAFE is a community-based, World Health Organization-endorsed approach to prevent and eliminate blinding trachoma through Surgeries, Antibiotics to treat active disease using Pfizer- donated Zithromax, Facial cleanliness to reduce transmission, and Environmental improvements to eliminate the disease altogether.

“Through the generosity of the Izumi Foundation, we will be able to save the sight of 20,000 people,” stated Ibrahim Jabr, president of ITI.  “We will also be able to clear the backlog of surgeries in 16 districts and move two of the world’s poorest nations closer to WHO’s goal of eliminating blinding trachoma by the year 2020.  Trachoma not only blinds but is also a disease of poverty that robs over $3 billion in wages and productivity a year from countries and people who are already suffering.  When you look at the Human Development Index and see that out of 177 countries, Niger ranks 174 and Burkina Faso ranks 176, you realize that the Izumi Foundation funds are truly going to help the poorest of the poor.  We are grateful for this grant and will begin work immediately to put the funds to use working on the ground with our NGO partners in the two countries.”

“The Izumi Foundation is pleased to be able to continue our support to ITI in its effective work to eliminate blinding trachoma and believe that the sight-saving surgeries in Burkina Faso and Niger will have a real impact on the quality of life in those two countries,” stated John Warford, Executive Director of the Izumi Foundation.  “Earlier, smaller grants to ITI to support trachoma control efforts in Tanzania and Mali had successful outcomes.  We look forward to progress reports over the course of this three-year grant as the mobile surgical camps bring hope to the rural communities where they will be operating.”

In Burkina Faso, ITI will support the Ministry of Health in its effort to provide 10,000 TT surgeries in nine trachoma endemic districts in which prevalence mapping has been completed.  In Niger, ITI will support the Ministry of Public Health in its effort to provide TT surgeries, using funds from the Izumi Foundation grant to focus on the seven districts of the Maradi Region, a high trachoma prevalence region.  The target of 10,000 surgeries over three years will eliminate the existing TT backlog in this region.

Both programs will address a backlog of TT surgeries by making surgical equipment and supplies available and by training TT operators to perform surgeries in surgical camps and district health facilities.  By providing refresher training sessions for TT operators and training new health personnel, the programs will also strengthen the capacity of the district health facilities to continue providing surgeries for incident cases that arise after the program finishes.  By the end of the three years of the grant, 20,000 cases of trachoma-related blindness will have been prevented, and a sustainable system to address TT cases in the future will have been established.

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 The International Trachoma Initiative (ITI) is a non-governmental organization working to prevent, treat and ultimately eliminate blinding trachoma. With programs in 15 countries in Africa and Asia, ITI is a major proponent and facilitator of the SAFE strategy to prevent and eliminate trachoma through Surgery, Antibiotics, Facial cleanliness and Environmental improvement. ITI, created through a public-private partnership of the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation and Pfizer Inc, collaborates with international agencies, governmental, and non-governmental organizations to build targeted support—including Zithromax® donated by Pfizer—for expanded implementation of the SAFE strategy, operational research and program evaluation, education and advocacy.   http://www.trachoma.org