FIMA Year Book 2010-2011 - Federation of Islamic Medical ...

SAVE VISION
In 2004, according to the World Health
Organization (WHO), approximately 314 million
people worldwide have low vision, and out of
those, 44 million people are blind. Eighty percent
of blindness is avoidable, i.e. treatable and/or
preventable 1 .
In 2010, WHO released latest global estimates of
visual impairments. Number of people with visual
impairment, worldwide, is 285 million. Of those,
39 million are blind 3 .
The improvement in numbers has been attributed
largely to decline of infectious causes.
The top three causes of visual impairment in 2004
were: Uncorrected refractive errors, cataract and
glaucoma.
The top three cause of blindness in 2010, were:
Cataract, glaucoma, and age-related macular
degeneration.
For every 24 hours, 86,400 individuals are added
to the blindness pool, 50,000 of them are due to
cataract, out of whom only 30,000 are operated
upon, and around 20,000 are added to the backlog
of cataract 3-5 .
Cataract blindness can be treated successfully with
surgery. Cataract surgery is considered one of the
most cost-effective forms of health interventions 2 .
In some developing countries, the rate of cataract
surgery is less than 250 operations per million
people per year, as compared to a rate of 8,000 in
some developed countries.
One million people are operated upon every year,
but 1.5 million are added every year 3-5 .
WHO estimates that without major intervention,
the number of blind people will escalate to 75
million in 2020 2 , and the economic burden of
blindness will rise from USD 42 billion per annum
in 2000 to 111 billion by the year 2020 2 .
In the Eastern Mediterranean region, WHO
statistics reveal widespread prevalence of visual
impairments, with at least 6 million people with
various degrees of visual impairment.
Seven countries in the region have extensive needs
for combating various etiologies of blindness,
namely: Somalia, Sudan, Djibouti, Yemen, Iraq,
Palestine and Afghanistan 6 .
In Sudan, as an example, there were 160
ophthalmologists by 2003, of whom 110 were in
the capital area, Khartoum. Only 50 were scarcely
dispersed in the remaining provinces of Sudan. In
the province of West Darfur, there was not a
single eye doctor, or eye-care facility until late
2005 7,8 .
In this paper, we will present the FIMA Save
Vision Program launched in January 2005, starting
in Darfur-Sudan, following a pilot visit by a
medical relief team from Jordan, led by then
FIMA president Dr. Aly Misha’l, in October 2004.
FIMA leadership has adopted this relief program
as an ongoing activity, wherever needed to
alleviate human suffering. A steering committee
was appointed with headquarters in Pakistan,
where experienced and dedicated
ophthalmologists have established a record of
excellence in combating visual impairment in
South Asia.
Cataract, as a leading cause of blindness around
the globe, holds true for Sudan as well. It is
estimated that cataract represents approximately
60% out of all etiologies of blindness there. The
backlog of cataract cases in the country is
estimated to be around 350,000 7,8 .
Cataract surgical rate (CSR) in Sudan was only
830, and Sudanese health authorities aim to
achieve a CSR of 2500 by the year 2010. This
target, though not that high, might be quite
difficult to achieve, given the various constraints
Sudan is facing.
Program objectives:
1- Reach out to people suffering from visual
impairment in needy, deprived communities,
especially in remote areas in Africa and Asia.
The main target is alleviation of cataract, the
main cause of treatable blindness.
2- Training and capacity building of local eye
doctors, nurses and other paramedics, in an
effort to maintain and widen the SAVE
VISION Program by qualified local expertise.
3- Establishment of permanent, fairly wellequipped
and sustainable eye hospitals, or eye
FIMA YearBook 2010-2011 54