There are approximately 5.9 million blind in Africa.
A significant proportion of our work in Africa has been directed at non-medical personnel in an attempt to build up the skills of those who do most of the primary care work.
In order to pursue our educational work in Africa we established a training base at McCord’s Regional Eye Hospital in Durban in 2016.
Ophthalmic nurses and ophthalmic clinical officers come from many African countries to attend our courses – from Kenya, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Botswana, Malawi, Tanzania, Lesotho and Swaziland and South Africa itself. Since starting we have taught over 200 of this cadre and through them are reaching approximately 10,000 patients per week.
Due to the Covid Pandemic we have been unable to visit there in the last two years due to travel restrictions but our visits will recommence in 2023.
