TANZANIA— TanZaEye, a German-based non-governmental organization operating in Tanzania and the Roman Catholic Church Mpanda Diocese, has opened a state-of-the-art eye theatre clinic in Mpanda, Katavi Region.
The St. Aloyce eye theatre clinic in Mpanda Municipality will be the first of its kind in the Tanzania Western region.
TanZaEye has been running temporary interventions and clinics in Tanzania’s western regions of Rukwa, Katavi, and Kigoma providing comprehensive quality eye care services since 2012.
Equally, TanZaEye in collaboration with the Roman Catholic Mpanda Diocese will run the facility at the St Aloyce Eye Clinic Centre.
In efforts to provide comprehensive quality eye care services, TanZaEye has also procured specialized eye equipment valued at US$140,000, which has been installed at the facility and will subsequently enable the facility to serve more than 100 patients per day.
The entire cost to set up the St Aloyce Eye Clinic center from the state-of-the-art eye theatre, clinical services including diagnostic tools, and the qualified staff was about US$462,000.
Giving a breakdown, Resident Representative for TanZaEye, Linuma Rainer said that more than US$322,00 has been spent on the construction of the facility, while US$140,000 had been utilized for the procurement of medical and non-medical devices.
Speaking after inaugurating the eye theatre facility, Roman Catholic Sumbawanga Diocese, Right Rev. Bishop Eusebius Nzingirwa said, “There is an increasing number of individuals with eye diseases in our region in recent years due to various reasons including poor eating habits and reporting late for treatments.”
On his side, TanZaEye Programme Director Dr Karsten Paust said the facility will have the eye care surgical outreach clinic, the cataract surgeon for eye care surgical services as well as optometrists and ophthalmic nurses.
The Katavi Regional Medical Officer (RMO) Dr Jonathan Budenu said, “Education and awareness raising is important otherwise individuals will continue seeking treatment from ‘traditional healers’ who tend to treat eye problems in the region by using local herbs and other traditional means.”
Previously patients would be sent to Muhimbili National Hospital in Dar-es-Salaam and Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre.
As per statistics presented on the prevalence of eye ailment, about 192,000 people which is equivalent to 1% of residents of Katavi Region have been diagnosed with eye complications in 2022.
The prevalence of bilateral blindness in the population is estimated to be between 2.4% and 4.7%, based on data from the 2016 Rapid Assessment of Avoidable Blindness (RAAB) program conducted in the Kilimanjaro, Morogoro, and Singida regions.
Cataracts accounted for over 65% of blindness and over 75% of severe visual impairment, according to the same report.
Sub-Saharan Africa has a disproportionate burden of visual impairment compared to other regions.
This inequality in prevalence is attributed to factors such as the endemicity of two neglected tropical diseases (trachoma and onchocerciasis) in many parts of the continent, as reported by the WHO’s Vision 2020: the right to sight program.
The Vision 2020 initiative by the WHO has implemented interventions that have been successful, including the control of river blindness through the Onchocerciasis Control Programme. This has halted the transmission of disease-causing parasites in 11 West African countries, preventing 600,000 cases of blindness.
Immunization and vitamin A supplementation have been effective in reducing the risk of blindness in vulnerable populations.
A 2017 publication in BMC Health Service highlights that a significant proportion of blindness in Africa is caused by preventable or treatable eye health problems that are easily resolved in better-resourced parts of the world.
The World Health Organization’s Global Action Plan on Avoidable Blindness aims to encourage the development and implementation of integrated national eye health policies, plans, and programs to enhance universal eye health.
The WHO describes the six interconnected components of a successful eye health system as Governance and Leadership, Health Care Financing, Health Workforce, Medical Products and Technologies, Information and Research, and Service Delivery.
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