Guatemala strengthens capacities for trachoma elimination with a new training workshop for health personnel

Guatemala, October 30, 2025 (PAHO) - Guatemala has moved one step further toward the elimination of trachoma as a public health problem by holding a training workshop for the Trachoma Prevalence Survey "Plus", organized by the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) in cooperation with Tropical Data and the Ministry of Public Health and Social Welfare of Guatemala, as part of the Initiative for the Elimination of Trachoma in the Americas, funded by the Government of Canada.

The workshop, held from 6-18 October 2025 in Coatepeque, Quetzaltenango, aimed to certify technical teams in accordance with World Health Organization (WHO) recommendations to support the country on its path toward elimination of trachoma as a public health problem.

Overall, 16 participants from the Ministry of Health were trained and certified, and will now support trachoma surveys in the districts of El Quetzal (San Marcos); Chicacao (Suchitepéquez); and San Lucas Tolimán, Xejuyup, Guineales, and La Ceiba (Sololá). The training activity was supervised by international experts from Brazil, Colombia, and Ecuador.

According to workshop supervisor Diana Paola Gómez, this process is key to ensuring that reliable, comparable data are collected to inform the decisions of the national trachoma program and contribute to achieving the elimination goal.

The workshop also included activities in nearby communities, such as Los Pérez and Los Cedros, where teams interacted with community leaders and families to translate the strategies they learned into practice, under the supervision of PAHO and Tropical Data experts.

Guatemala is currently the country closest to achieving elimination of trachoma as a public health problem. The results of this survey will allow the Ministry of Public Health and Social Welfare to collect data and the necessary evidence to understand the current epidemiological situation of trachoma in the country.

These trachoma elimination activities are part of PAHO's Diseases Elimination Initiative, a regional policy that is promoting an integrated, interprogrammatic, sustainable approach to accelerate progress toward elimination goals in the Region of the Americas.