The World Health Organization has validated Timor-Leste trachoma elimination as a public health problem, making the country the last in the WHO South-East Asia Region to shed the disease and completing a clean sweep across the entire region. More than 2 billion people now live with minimal risk of contracting the bacterium, and with access to health services capable of detecting and treating it should cases arise.
Trachoma is caused by the bacterium Chlamydia trachomatis. Repeated infections scar the inner eyelid, causing eyelashes to turn inward (a condition called trichiasis) which can ultimately result in blindness. The disease is strongly associated with poverty and with inequalities in access to water, sanitation, hygiene products, and medical care, making its elimination in a lower-income country a product of sustained, deliberate effort rather than passive progress.
What the Timor-Leste trachoma elimination involved
WHO’s validation followed a rigorous, multi-year process. A series of investigations carried out between 2015 and 2017 included the examination of children on Atauro Island, screening of patients attending eye clinics across the country, and systematic house-to-house searches. No trace of trachoma was found. Timor-Leste then generated further evidence through additional studies, culminating in a 2025 survey in which 4,949 samples from children aged 1 to 5 years were analysed across all 13 municipalities. Testing found no evidence of transmission at a level requiring trachoma-specific public health intervention.
The evidence was developed through the leadership of Timor-Leste’s Ministry of Health, with support from WHO and a range of eye-health and research partners. According to The National Tribune, those partners included the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons, The Fred Hollows Foundation, Menzies School of Health Research, the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, the Kirby Institute at UNSW Sydney, Lions Clubs International Foundation, and the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness. The breadth of that coalition reflects how much coordination it takes to document the absence of a disease convincingly enough to satisfy WHO’s standards.
‘Timor-Leste has once again demonstrated that strong national leadership, high-quality evidence and integrated health services can deliver lasting public health gains,’ said Dr Nilesh Buddha, Officer-in-Charge at WHO Southeast Asia Regional Office. ‘The country’s approach also shows the value of integrating surveillance across diseases so that limited resources produce the greatest possible benefit for communities.’
The 33rd country worldwide to reach this milestone
Timor-Leste is the 33rd country in the world to achieve elimination of trachoma as a public health problem, and the fourth in the WHO South-East Asia Region. It was also the last country in that region with suspected endemic trachoma, meaning its validation closes the chapter on the disease across all eleven member states. The sequence of regional eliminations built steadily over the past decade: Laos DPR achieved elimination in 2017, Nepal a year later, Myanmar in 2020, and India in 2024. Vietnam, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Bhutan, and Thailand had all eliminated it previously.
‘The elimination of trachoma from the South-East Asia Region is a significant step towards our global target of eliminating trachoma worldwide by 2030,’ said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General. ‘I congratulate Timor-Leste on this important achievement.’
That 2030 global target now has one fewer region to worry about. With Southeast Asia certified clear, attention shifts to the countries elsewhere that still carry the burden, many of them in sub-Saharan Africa, where the combination of limited infrastructure and high transmission rates makes the remaining work considerably harder than what Timor-Leste faced. The Timor-Leste trachoma elimination stands as a workable model: long-term surveillance, integrated health services, and a coalition of national and international partners willing to see the process through to its documented conclusion.
