Burundi just eliminated trachoma — the world's top infectious cause of blindness

Twenty years ago, Burundi didn't even know how far trachoma — a bacterial eye infection that scars eyelids until lashes scratch the cornea — had spread through its poorest villages. The country's answer was persistence: mass antibiotic treatment reaching about 2.5 million people, surgeries, hygiene education, and cleaner water. The World Health Organization has now validated the elimination, making Burundi the eighth African country and 24th worldwide to defeat the disease as a public health threat.