- Haile, Meron;
- Tadesse, Zerihun;
- Gebreselassie, Sintayehu;
- Ayele, Berhan;
- Gebre, Teshome;
- Yu, Sun N;
- Stoller, Nicole E;
- Gaynor, Bruce D;
- Porco, Travis C;
- Emerson, Paul M;
- Lietman, Thomas M;
- Keenan, Jeremy D
Latrine use has been promoted as a component of an integrated strategy for trachoma control. As part of a randomized trial in Ethiopia, 12 communities received a mass azithromycin distribution followed by a latrine promotion intervention. A random sample of children ages 0-9 years in each community was monitored longitudinally for ocular chlamydia. After latrine construction ended, those communities with a higher proportion of households using latrines were more likely to experience a reduction in the prevalence of ocular chlamydia. Specifically, for each 10% increase in latrine use, there was a 2.0% decrease (95% confidence interval = 0.2-3.9% decrease) in the community prevalence of ocular chlamydia over the subsequent year (P = 0.04).