According to a study in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association, the antibiotic Zithromax [azithromycin], which is widely used in Africa to treat the eyesight-robbing infection trachoma, seems to help prevent Ethiopian children from dying of other diseases.

For the study, researchers from the Carter Center in Atlanta compared villages where children received the antibiotic Zithromax to villages where treatment was delayed a year. The antibiotic cut the death rate in half, and the researchers speculate it helped prevent deaths from pneumonia, diarrhea, and malaria, the biggest killers of Ethiopian children.

The AP notes that trachoma is caused by bacteria that spreads to the eyes from fingers, clothing or, some researchers think, from flies. Over the years, blindness develops through repeated infections and scarring.

Posted in: Africa, American Medical Association, Atlanta, Carter Center, Conditions and Diseases, Health, Journal of the American Medical Association