Trachoma: ancient scourge, disease elimination, and future research.

Realistically, global elimination of trachoma could not have been considered until the maturation of innovation and public will that converged with the formation of both the Alliance for the Global Elimination of Trachoma by the year 2020 (GET2020) in 1997 and the public-private partnership, the International Trachoma Initiative (ITI) in 1998. Public-private partnerships are cross-sector collaborations that bring heterogeneous capabilities together to work on difficult problems for which the individual partners share common goals. The work of the ITI and partners to date demonstrates that the SAFE strategy reviewed in this article can work, and that it will revolutionize the control of blinding trachoma. Programs working to eliminate trachoma can achieve the GET2020 goals through expanded partnerships, commitment, and research on program integration into evolving health systems.