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Every year, thousands of premature newborn babies in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are going blind because physicians lack the training, supplies, and equipment they need to prevent blindness. This epidemic of blind babies is emerging in SSA from Retinopathy of Prematurity (ROP).
ROP was first recognized in the US and Europe when premature babies began to survive in newly created Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICUs). Though survival rates increased, babies received excessive oxygen in these NICUs, which often led to blindness.
Today, developed countries benefit from multiple enhancements in NICUs and treatments for ROP, which have subsequently significantly reduced the incidence of blindness.
In developing countries in SSA, many new NICUs are being established. ROP is becoming a more common cause of childhood blindness as survival rates for premature infants increase, but oxygen is not regulated properly. At present, many countries in SSA lack the infrastructure and equipment necessary to reduce the incidence of ROP, provide proper screening, or treat it effectively.
The International Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus Council (IPOSC), in partnership with the Children’s Eye Foundation of AAPOS, is seeking funding to develop protocols, educational materials, and screening techniques, as well as to provide equipment to neonatal centers in Africa for proper oxygen administration. This critically important initiative, once executed, will give many thousands of children the joy of sight for life.
There are many countries in the world that lack ophthalmologists specially trained to deliver eye care to children. To help address this gap in eye care, one of the steps IPOSC has taken is creating the International Pediatric Eyecare Training committee (IPET). The IPET committee was formed in 2021 and was charged with providing routes for training ophthalmic support staff to be frontline pediatric eye care providers with the skills and knowledge to determine when a child needs referral to an ophthalmologist for medical or surgical evaluation and management.
IPET developed an orthoptic training program in Gambia in 2022. Instruction was provided by volunteer orthoptists from North America and Europe. The students are trained to evaluate and deliver non-medical/surgical care to children and to adults with eye muscle disorders. The first class, specially selected to become the future instructors, graduated in 2023, completed their internships in 2024, and are now being mentored by the volunteer instructors, gaining deeper knowledge and more experience, as they transition to their roles as instructors. IPET and its volunteers continue their instruction and mentorship at the site to ensure that the high academic standards set by IPET are maintained.
Hundreds of children and many adults in Gambia have already received life-changing eye care as a result of IPET’s work. The site of this new orthoptic training program has other courses that have had enrollees from 22 other African countries. The orthoptic training program had its first foreign enrollee in the class that began in 2024. Foreign enrollment is expected to grow. This will enable IPET’s work in The Gambia to impact many more African countries, improving the lives and futures of countless African children.
