Fighting blindness in Zambia

With many Zambians living in rural areas, a significant amount of the population have limited access to basic eye care.

A high poverty rate in the country also means many cannot afford eye care services.

The main cause of vision loss in Zambia is cataracts.

Working with our partners and with the support of our donors Orbis have helped:

• Train the first female surgeon in the country to carry out retinal detachment surgery
• Set up a lab to train ophthalmologists at University Teaching Eye Hospital
• Increase the number of ophthalmologists from 17 in 2017, to 38 in 2022
• Increase the number of children accessing eye health services in the Copperbelt region
• Set up or improve two eye hospitals

Orbis is working with partners to:

• Train and mentor ophthalmologists using our online platform, Cybersight
• Expand access to eye care services by partnering with private hospitals in Lusaka
• Develop two gender-specific projects to address lack of equal access to eye care
• Extend school eye health programs to reach children across all 10 districts in the Copperbelt region
• Carry out paediatric outreach by training community health workers