How we’re working to integrate eye care into primary health care

If you sprain an ankle or come down with a bad cough, your first stop is usually your family doctor. But when it comes to blurry vision, the path to care often looks very different. Around the world, eye health is still treated separately from primary health care, creating gaps that leave people without the… Continue reading How we’re working to integrate eye care into primary health care

Notes from the field: An end to isolation for a young mother

When I first met Mary*, she told me how she had been blind since 2012. She had started losing her vision when she was very young – when she was a new bride and expecting her first child. Living in a rural area, far from any hospitals, she went to a traditional healer for help… Continue reading Notes from the field: An end to isolation for a young mother

Notes from the field: Reporting for duty in Isiolo County, Kenya

On the day I arrived in Garbatulla, Kenya to begin my work with Operation Eyesight, there was no electricity, so I couldn’t let my colleagues back in Nairobi know that I had made it. The next day, the network came back online, but the incident sums up one of the challenges of working in this… Continue reading Notes from the field: Reporting for duty in Isiolo County, Kenya

This little one has a big future ahead

In India, there are about 3.5 million premature births annually, and more than 150,000 are liable to develop Retinopathy of Prematurity (ROP). Without early diagnosis and treatment, infants like little Aarsh, pictured here with his mother Shabana, could otherwise have faced a life with irreversible blindness. Learn more.

Look at those big, beautiful eyes! This is baby Aarsh, from a small village just outside Moradabad city, in Uttar Pradesh, India. At seven months old, he weighs about seven pounds – what many babies weigh at birth. Aarsh’s mother, Shabana, was only seven months pregnant when she delivered him prematurely. Little Aarsh had been… Continue reading This little one has a big future ahead