01
Global context — Vision 2020
WHO estimates 40–45 million people are blind worldwide; nearly 60% reside in Africa, China and India. Despite a half-century of effort, the global burden of blindness is growing with population growth and aging. Without urgent action the burden could double by 2020, with developing countries bearing the brunt. About 80% of global blindness is avoidable through prevention or control.
02
Indian context
India has approximately 10 million blind persons; as many as 2.5 million (about 25%) are corneally blind, and more than 1.5 million of them are children aged 1–12 years. A corneally blind person can regain sight instantly if the defective cornea is replaced with a healthy human one — a case of truly rectifiable blindness. Yet despite all medical advances, there is no man-made substitute for human cornea.
03
The cornea & the impediments
The cornea is the transparent front lens covering the eyeball. Damage — from pollution, malnutrition, illness or accidents — causes blindness, primarily among the poorer sections of society. Good corneas can be retrieved after death, the only part of the human body that can be re-used post-mortem. India lacks presumed-consent laws, so efforts must rely on voluntary donation. Four impediments block retrieval: ignorance of the need, religious superstition, family emotion at the time of death, and apathy.
04
Retrieval problem
Retrieval must happen within 3–4 hours of death, by qualified medical practitioners, with family consent (even where the donor registered prior consent). Retrieved corneas must reach a processing centre within 6 hours. These constraints demand dynamic logistic management and efficient co-ordination to ensure proper utilisation so that money and effort are not wasted.
05
What we can do
Against an annual demand of roughly 400,000 corneas, India collects only about 14,000. The supply–demand gap widens daily. We are committed to helping eradicate corneal blindness and spreading eye-care awareness through ICT and Networking. Often the shortage is simply a lack of information and linkage between eye banks, hospitals, blind persons and donors. Our premise: available donor corneas are more than adequate to meet demand, provided they are retrieved within hours and people are motivated to donate.
06
Grassroot & ICT model
Gujarat has roughly 40,000 villages, many in remote and tribal belts. We tied up with socio-religious voluntary organisations whose volunteers propagate blood- and eye-donation themes in these villages, meeting their travel and incidental expenses with a modest monthly stipend. Our ICT model offers services for increased eye donation, quality transplants and better eye care through a wider network of eye banks, hospitals, donors, volunteers and care centres — ensuring availability of cornea to every blind person, assured quality, and optimal use of resources, alongside a knowledge bank on blindness eradication, eye care, cornea removal/storage/transplantation, regulations, donor awareness and inter-institutional co-ordination.
07
Proposed solution
Networking of eye banks and related institutions with a focus on information exchange: mutual co-operation, online registration of donors & recipients, harnessing the Internet's reach at regional, national and global levels, and co-ordination between donor eyes, eye banks, hospitals, institutions and recipients. An Internet portal would serve as the platform for networking and for building a worldwide knowledge bank and information warehouse.