Infections with Chlamydia trachomatis
1 Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA 02115
Chlamydia trachomatis is a highly successful parasite of man which is to say that while some disease conditions produced are severe or fatal the majority are relatively minor. Worldwide in distribution, this organism remains the leading cause of blindness, due to trachoma; fully 15% of the world's population may be infected, prompting Sir Macfarlane Burnet to term trachoma one of the three most serious diseases of mankind.1 With the dwindling after World War II of the trachoma problem in the border states (Mason-Dixon line) of the United States, seven hospitals of the US Public Health Service devoted to this disease were closed and interest in chlamydial infections, save for an occasional outbreak of psittacosis, shifted to underdeveloped countries where trachoma remained a problem.




