Inclusive Eye Health
What we do
We work through partnership with the states, executing specific programmes including;
Seeing is believing
The goal of the Eye Health Programme is to contribute to the reduction of avoidable blindness in the supported states of Kano, Jigawa, Yobe and the FCT. The activities of the department include Eye Health education, community eyes screening, carrying out consultations and giving treatments for minor eye diseases, refraction and dispensing of glasses, making referrals for surgeries and other complicated conditions that need expert hospital-based treatments, as well as engaging in low vision consultation and dispensing low vision devices.
Routinely, also as part of the NTD interventions in the area of control and elimination of Trachoma; either as an infection (TF) (Trachomatous Follicles) or as complications as in TT (Trachomatous Trichiasis).
The Comprehensive Eye Health Programme of HANDS has contributed to the reduction of preventable blindness and improvement in the quality of life of persons with visual impairment as declared in the Global Vision 2020 Initiative. This was mainly achieved through the reduction of backlog of cataract and Trachomatous Trichiasis (TT), primary eye care activities including; awareness creation, eye health education, screening and treatment of eye diseases; low vision services and capacity building of health workers.
From 2006 till date, we have conducted over 120,000 TT surgeries and 60,000 cataract surgeries. We have given over 1,000 reading glasses to school children and trained over 46,000 health workers.
