New intervention model to eliminate the spread of trachoma in hyper-endemic community: Based on a mathematical model

Abstract

The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends periodic mass antibiotic distributions to reduce clinically active trachoma to some threshold, below which scarring and blindness would never occur or at least would become so rare that trachoma would no longer be a major public health problem. According to the WHO recommendation, the antibiotic mass distribution should be administered annually in meso-endemic communities and biannually in hyper-endemic communities. However, there are options that target particular section of the community especially the core groups, pre-school age individuals. In this study, we used mathematical model to test the theoretical possibilities of locally eradicating trachoma by treating only pre-school age children. Thus, we formulated and analysed a simple deterministic model for the spread of trachoma disease with age dependent rate of transmission in the society. It is shown that treating the core group (the pre-school aged children) using oral azithromycin periodically, every three months for four years, can eliminate trachoma locally from the community. However, since the disease can be reintroduced to the population from the neighboring communities, a further biannual mass treatment only for pre-school aged children is required to eliminate the infection sustainably from the population.