Blindness

---

Ruta writing…Living in Ethiopia is fascinating from the perspective of seeing things you’d rarely see at home in Chicago. Sadly, this extends to the physical ailments of the Ethiopians. In the streets there are so many people with deformed limbs, golf ball size tumors in their necks, facial deformities, elephantitis in the leg, skin rashes, oozing conjunctivitis, etc.

Strikingly, there are an amazingly large number of blind people, both functioning within business and schools, but also begging in the streets. How sad when even my untrained eye can identify untreated cataracts that have stolen someone’s eyesight.

But as with many of the development issues here, it’s inspirational to learn how much progress is being made. Across the street from our home, there is a NGO dedicated to restoring sight called ORBIS. Interestingly, they have a Flying Eye Hospital that is a full operating room in a plane. The plane provides mobile modern facilities to train local opthalmologists (all 80 of them). They teach doctors while performing surgeries on the plane. Here are interesting facts from their website www.orbis.org.

“According to the World Health Organization, 37 million people worldwide are blind — yet 28 million suffer needlessly. Their blindness could have been prevented or treated. ORBIS is a nonprofit organization fighting blindness in developing countries, where 90 percent of the blind reside.

The latest figures from Ethiopia indicate that 1.2 million Ethiopians are blind and close to 2.8 million have low vision. Because only 82 ophthalmologists are available for a country of 75 million population, eye care services are extremely limited throughout the country, particularly in rural areas.”
Fact File
Population 75 million
Population under 15 45%
Population living below national poverty line 44.2%
Rural population 84.3
Percentage of total ophthalmologists working in rural areas 37.8%
Approximate number of practicing ophthalmologists 82
Health expenditure per capita $5.6
Prevalence of blindness* 1.6%
Blind population* 1,200,546
Leading causes of blindness Cataract (49.9%), trachomatous corneal opacity (11.5%), refractive error (7.8%), other corneal opacity (7.8%)
Leading causes of childhood blindness Corneal opacity mainly as a result of measles/vitamin A deficiency, refractive errors18
Ophthalmologists per million population 1.0919



www.orbis.org

---

Comments

[Sr. Rosemary]

Oh, how much we take for granted! Thanks be to God for the gift of eyesight and glasses/contacts You all are in our thoughts and prayers. Sr. Rosemary

[ORBIS International]

Eyes on Ethiopia
Hi Ruta, thanks for taking the time to blog about blindness in Ethiopia. If you're interested in learning more about ORBIS' work in the nation check out a blog post that was written over the summer about one of the leading causes of blindness in Ethiopia--trachoma. Follow this link to learn more: http://blog.orbis.org/orbis_international/2008/08/eyes-on-ethiopi.html#more