Between 2017 and 2024, not less than 13,507 residents of Bauchi state have undergone trachoma surgeries to prevent them from blindness, according to SightSaver.

The Organisation made this known during the closeout of its project which is executed jointly with HANDS. Speaking in Bauchi yesterday, the Country Director, SightSavers Nigeria, Dr Joy Shuaibu said that the operations were done under the Trachomatous and Trichiasis (TT) project.

The project included, according to her, 14 active Trachoma Surgeons and 42 assistants while the project trained 17,912 community mobilisers, known as case finders across 19 endemic LGAs of the state for house-from-house TT case search.

“There was also management of 13,507 TT cases across 509 TT endemic LGAs from December 2017- 2023 and the establishment of static centers across the state.”

Also speaking, the former Commissioner for Health, Adamu Umar Sambo, said that Trachoma remains the world’s leading cause of blindness and is among the neglected tropical diseases (NTDs).

“We as government will put effort in place to ensure the elimination of all the NTDs by the year 2030,” he said.