Timor Leste

Trachoma elimination has now reached every corner of WHO’s South-East Asia Region, and Timor-Leste — one of Southeast Asia’s youngest nations — pushed it over the finish line. The disease spreads through poverty-linked conditions like poor sanitation and limited clean water, making elimination genuinely hard-won here. A 2025 survey across all 13 municipalities found zero transmission requiring public health action, though individual trichiasis cases will still need ongoing care and sustained funding. This milestone shows that coordinated global health efforts can conquer diseases once seen as permanent features of poverty.

Timor-Leste has achieved malaria-free certification from the World Health Organization, eliminating a disease that once struck more than 223,000 people in a single year. The designation marks the culmination of a national malaria program launched in 2003, just one year after the country gained independence from decades of occupation and conflict. Reaching zero indigenous cases required free diagnosis and treatment, widespread bed net distribution, community health workers, and a real-time surveillance system built to catch reintroduction at borders. Timor-Leste is now only the third country in the WHO South-East Asia Region to earn this status, joining the Maldives and Sri Lanka.