Disappearance of trachoma from Western Nepal.

We assessed how much of the observed decline in the prevalence of trachoma in a district of Western Nepal was due to an antibiotic treatment program and how much to an underlying secular trend outside of the program. Although antibiotic treatments clearly have an effect at 6 months, we were unable to show that this effect persisted at 12 months; in fact, long-term gains may be due to a secular trend in the area.