Chlamydia trachoma is considered the main cause of preventable blindness. Trachoma can be spread by intimate contact, close contact within the family, or acquired from flies in the form of ocular trachoma. At Ellis Island, the eyes of immigrants were screened using the same dirty eye hook on every patient, which would have spread trachoma and defeated the purpose of the screening. Sexually acquired trachoma can spread from the reproductive tract to the eye. Ocular trachoma can be transmitted by a Musca sorbens fly, a/k/a the bazaar fly or the eye-seeking fly, which migrates across the United States in the summer and feeds on trachoma secretions.
Worldwide, trachoma results in visual impairment in over 2M people and blindness in 1.2M people. Pictures of children in Africa, whose faces are covered with flies, indicate the children have ocular trachoma; and children in Africa are now considered a reservoir for ocular trachoma. Oral and topical azithromycin are the standard treatment for eye diseases across the world, and in Africa have significantly reduced the rates of blindness. Doxycycline and metronidazole are also recognized treatment for trachoma.
Observation and wisdom guided therapy throughout the world shows treatment of chronic infections in the eye can prevent blindness. People should also try to prevent flies from landing on the face, to avoid blinding infections transmitted by flies.
