15th February part 2

We went on to a secondary eye unit in another village, where they performed cataract operations. I was very pleased to see that they all had mosquito nets – something that isn’t universal in the places I have visited. I met the patients, and discovered that none of them had been cataract blind for more than a few months. Talking to the doctors here, it became clear that The Gambia has now cleared its backlog, and is treating incidence only. A great achievement. Recent surveys have shown that the prevalence of blindness here has reduced from 0.7% to 0.4%.

However, they see an increasing number of people coming over from Senegal, and even more from Guinea Bissau, and it is clear that the problems there (particularly in Guinea Bissau) are much more severe. It is therefore excellent that we will be starting programmes there this year, and that the Sheikh Zayed Regional Eye Care Centre (SZREC) covers all these countries.

We then visited a primary centre, to talk to a Community Eye-care Nurse, and then on to a school to meet a teacher who was also one of the ‘Friends of the Eye’, who move among the community raising awareness of eye-care and encouraging people to get treatment.

Overall it was a great visit, particularly since the Office were fully occupied managing the myriad of guests arriving (or trying to arrive) for the Inauguration.