WABE’s Odette Yousef reports from Ethiopia on trachoma

In late April, award-winning reporter Odette Yousef of WABE 90.1 FM traveled to Ethiopia with the Carter Center to report on trachoma, an eye illness that can lead to blindness and which has ravaged the African country.

Once a common malady, trachoma is now concentrated in some of Africa’s most poverty-stricken countries — Ethiopia being one of them. Nearly 85 percent of its population is at risk of acquiring the bacterial illness, which thrives in areas with poor sanitation and hygiene. In Ethiopia, its most common vector is a fly that feeds off ocular and nasal discharges. The lack of clean water for hygiene and large numbers of people living in close quarters only makes trachoma more difficult to tackle.

The Carter Center has launched trachoma control programs in several African countries, but Yousef says Ethiopia has been the biggest challenge. She traveled with center officials and doctors to the country’s northwestern state of Amhara, where the Carter Center hopes to effectively control the illness by 2012.

Yousef’s five-part series is airing all this week on WABE’s morning newscast. For those of you who might have missed her reports, the station has posted the full series and a large amount of content, including video and photos, on its blogs site.

(Photo by Odette Yousef)