Dear Meena and all,
You wrote: "This situation is worsened by trust in local healers who are readily available and take advantage of treating the chronic condition of progressive visual impairment inappropriately, causing serious harm to the patient."
One seriously harmful treatment, which - I have read - is still occasionally performed in rural parts of West Africa, is couching where a traditional healer puts a sharp stick through the eye to push the lens aside. This is a primitive form of 'cataract surgery', said to originate in India in the 6th century BC. The results are terrible: uveitis, secondary glaucoma, massive infections, retinal detachment, total blindness, and loss of the eye.
Can our colleagues in West Africa confirm whether this practice is still carried out?
Best wishes, Neil
HIFA profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is coordinator of HIFA (Healthcare Information For All), a global health community that brings all stakeholders together around the shared goal of universal access to reliable healthcare information. HIFA has 20,000 members in 180 countries, interacting in four languages and representing all parts of the global evidence ecosystem. HIFA is administered by Global Healthcare Information Network, a UK-based nonprofit in official relations with the World Health Organization. Email: neil@hifa.org