To Cure Blindness
rural eye surgery clinic, Nepal (credit: Himalayan Cataract Project)
What if cataract-induced blindness could be eliminated anywhere it occurs? It sounds like an impossible proposition. However, sight is being restored to people suffering from advanced cataracts in Nepal, Tibet, Ghana, Ethiopia, and elsewhere by an international initiative that is making this possible.
The pioneering efforts of Dr's Geoff Tabin and Sanduk Ruit have created the international organization Cure Blindness to accomplish the impossible by building temporary surgery clinics in remote field locations. The surgeries required the costs for cataract removal, typically from ~$3000/eye in developed countries, be reduced to ~$25/eye in developing nations. It also required training a corps of technicians where none existed before.
Tabin explains this remarkable enterprise at a TEDx conference while he was a surgeon at the University of Utah.
This Journal has contributed financial support to the "cure blindness" efforts of the Himalayan Cataract Project and we intend so in the future. You can assist this remarkable program yourself with a personal donation here. Contributions go directly to purchasing necessary field supplies and conducting the individual eye surgeries themselves. Tabin's goal is to cure blindness and he and his associates have made great progress thus far.
The Editors