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Sightsavers International
Sightsavers International is one of the world’s leading charities working to prevent and cure blindness in developing countries. Up to 75% of blindness worldwide can be prevented or cured, so our main aim is to prevent the tragedy of avoidable blindness. There are 37 million people who are blind in the world and 124 million who have low vision, yet people do not go blind by the million, they go blind one by one and the impact for each one is enormous. Loss of sight often results in social exclusion, making people who are blind vulnerable to abuse, poverty and early death.
Since inception in the 1950s, Sightsavers has helped restore sight to more than five million people and treated over 100 million for potentially blinding conditions. Sightsavers does not undertake direct service delivery but works to develop sustainable eye care programmes with local partners, offering expertise as well as financial backing. Sightsavers’ vision is of a world where no one is needlessly blind, but as well as seeking to prevent and cure avoidable blindness, Sightsavers also helps people who are irreversibly blind, providing education, counselling and training. With ongoing support, Sightsavers’ programmes will continue to transform the lives of those affected by blindness.
Project Summary:
Kwara State Eye Care, Nigeria
Seeing is Believing has been supporting Sightsavers’ work in Nigeria since 2004 and even with significant investment in this project, Kwara State remains an area in great need. Nigeria is one of Sightsavers and VISION 2020: The Right To Sight’s priority countries for blindness control in Africa.
With a population of 133 million people, Nigeria is Africa’s most populous country. Nearly 70% of Nigerians live in poverty, earning less than 140 Naira ($1) a day, yet Nigeria receives less foreign aid than many other countries in Africa. Many people work as subsistence farmers, living a hand-tomouth existence, which means that health care is rarely a priority. For people who are blind or visually impaired there are many barriers to essential treatment, including accessibility, affordability and availability of services.
In recent years one of Sightsavers’ priorities in Nigeria has been the development of comprehensive
eye care services, which are designed to provide a range of eye care services in a specific geographical
location, in order to prevent avoidable blindness. Investment in providing eye care services is greatly
needed in Nigeria. It is currently estimated that 1.56 million people in the country are blind and
3.9 million have low vision. To compound this problem, there is a growing cataract backlog. There are
approximately 750,000 people suffering from cataract, with a further 200,000 new cases occurring
each year, but only the capacity to perform 30,000 cataract operations a year. Alongside the problem
of cataract, there are number of other blinding conditions prevalent in the country, such as trachoma,
river blindness and glaucoma.
In Kwara State, it is estimated that between 1.7% and 1.8% of the population is blind. This is above the national average and much higher than the World Health Organization’s average of 1% for developing countries. This is due to high numbers of people affected by cataract and river blindness. Of the estimated 42,000 people who are blind in the State, approximately 27,300 people are cataract blind, with an average of 2,800 new cases each year. About 1,500 operations were undertaken in Kwara State in 2006.
Although Kwara State remains a priority for Sightsavers, the investment from Seeing is Believing from 2004 until 2006 has meant that the infrastructure needed to provide eye care services has been significantly improved. Eye care personnel such as primary eye care workers, ophthalmic nurses and ophthalmologists have been recruited and trained to ensure staff are in place at all levels. This project will continue to provide training, equipment and consumables to support treatment, work to prevent river blindness through Mectizan® distribution and the prevention of trachoma through the provision of antibiotics and surgery. The number of surgeries performed each year has grown and over a three year period, this project aims to provide 6,000 cataract surgeries, 180,000 treatments for other eye conditions and prevent river blindness in 810,000 people.
With the continued support of Seeing is Believing, Sightsavers and their local partners expect to continue to reduce the amount of avoidable blindness in Kwara State and therefore improve the quality of life for the people who live there.
