MALARIA CONSORTIUM - UGANDA

Risk mapping of Trachoma in Southern Sudan: Providing a tool for targeting of further surveys and interventions

Trachoma is endemic in many areas of Southern Sudan, but its distribution and associated burden is heterogeneous. To eliminate blinding trachoma as a public health problem by 2020 more data is required to establish populations at risk for control interventions. Targeting is important to prioritise areas with the highest burden. At present there is no tool in place to allow the national trachoma control programme to stratify and target its resources for effective control. Trachoma surveys are laborious and expensive to conduct, and the Ministry of Health MoH) of the Government of Southern Sudan (GoSS) is severely resource constrained. To provide the MoH-GoSS with a tool to decide on where to target its resources, the development of a trachoma risk map is proposed. To develop an understanding of how this tool was developed and how it functions, basic training on the use of Global Information Systems (GIS) in disease control will be conducted for key MoH-GoSS staff and other stakeholders. On completion of the map, a stakeholder workshop will be held to discuss the findings and their implication for surveys and control, and to decide on next steps. The map and results of the discussion among key trachoma stakeholders will be published in a peer-reviewed journal.