The World Health Organization (WHO) has validated Timor-Leste as having eliminated trachoma as a public health problem. Trachoma is the world's leading infectious cause of blindness. Timor-Leste was the last country in WHO’s South-East Asia Region with suspected endemic trachoma. With this validation, trachoma has been eliminated as a public health problem throughout the region.

"I congratulate Timor-Leste on this important achievement. By combining sound planning, careful field investigation and modern surveillance, the country has shown how science and strong health systems can protect people from preventable blindness," said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General. "The elimination of trachoma from the South-East Asia Region is a significant step towards our global target of eliminating trachoma worldwide by 2030."

WHO’s validation follows a rigorous, multi-year process to determine whether trachoma poses a public health problem in the country and to document the health system’s capacity to detect, investigate and manage cases that occur in the future. A series of investigations between 2015 and 2017 examined children on Atauro Island, screened patients attending eye clinics across the country and conducted targeted house-to-house searches. No trachoma was found.