Thirteen Villages in Ten Countries in Sub-Saharan Africa

In 2006, the Himalayan Cataract Project (HCP) was approached by Professor Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University (and author of "The End of Poverty") to carry out comprehensive eye care assessments in thirteen villages in Sub-Saharan Africa. As part of The Millennium Villages Project, HCP is helping demonstrate its innovative eye care model and cost structure within the complex United Nations health budget to ensure that the poorest and most neglected areas in the developing world can be served.

Although eye care was not included in the Millennium Villages Project’s original health strategy, it soon became clear to researchers that blindness was having a devastating economic impact on the project’s targeted populations and that HCP’s eye care model could answer their pressing needs.

Read the "Eye Care for the Millennium Villages" journal article written by the Himalayan Cataract Project [PDF, 145Kb]

In partnership with the Millennium Villages Project, HCP is overseeing eye care interventions for approximately 60,000 people in 12 villages across 10 countries with the goal of assessing the impact and cost of community-based screening and treatment initiatives on the burden of avoidable blindness in Sub-Saharan Africa. The interventions include community wide mobilization, screening and therapeutic measures for the prevention and treatment of avoidable blindness.

In addition to the village interventions, HCP has managed high-volume cataract programs in the cluster or region to treat those outside of the research village and to work with local eye care personnel on high-volume delivery. Through this effort, thousands of additional sight-restoring surgeries have been provided.