International Trachoma Initiative (ITI)
In 2004 Pfizer donated more than $268 million in product donations and health education grants in its efforts with the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, co-founders of the International Trachoma Initiative (ITI), to eliminate blinding trachoma, the world's leading cause of preventable blindness. The ITI works by seeking to further expand the use of the SAFE strategy. The SAFE strategy is a community-based plan of action that emphasizes the medical, behavioral, and environmental changes, essential to the control of trachoma. The four action steps comprising SAFE are: surgery, antibiotic treatment (using the revolutionary single dose preparation Zithromax), face washing and access to clean water, strengthened by increased health education. ITI now operates in eleven countries, Ethiopia, Ghana, Mali, Morocco, Nepal, Niger, Sudan, Tanzania and in Vietnam, Mauritania and Senegal.

At the end of 2004, the Initiative has achieved the following:
- Surgeries: more than 140,000 cases of blindness prevented;
- Antibiotic: over 20 million antibiotic treatments have been distributed;
- Face washing and Environment: over 12 million people reached with health messages;
- Results: 90% reduction in active disease in Morocco.

In fact, Morocco is on course to eliminate trachoma by 2005 and become the first ITI-supported country do so. Pfizer is committed to broadening the scope of the trachoma programs already in place and will launch several new country programs. In November 2003, Pfizer committed to bring its donations of its drug Zithromax® to 135 million over next five years.