21 May 2018 - The World Health Organization (WHO) has validated Nepal for having eliminated trachoma as a public health problem - a milestone, as the country becomes the first in WHO's South-East Asia Region to defeat the world's leading infectious cause of blindness. Several criteria are used to assess a country's claim for having eliminated trachoma as a public health problem. These include: Less than 5% of children aged 1-9 years have signs of active trachoma (trachomatous inflammation-follicular), which can be treated with antibiotics, in each previously-endemic district; Less than 0.2% of people aged 15 years and older have trachomatous trichiasis, which requires eyelid surgery, in each previously-endemic district; and A health system which can identify and manage new cases of trachomatous trichiasis.