‘Don’t bury your vision with you’

Kenedi Alemayehu, the boy you see smiling, wasn’t this happy a few years ago. He had a painful seven year experience which forced him to leave school. He had to spend his time at home, away from friends and the playground for four years. He had suffered from corneal opacity which made him unable to see and his corneas were affected by scars. In 2003, Kenedi’s mom learned that he had a hope of gaining his sight with a transplant. Fortunately, there was one donor out there who was willing to donate his/ her eye at the time of death and that donation was a golden opportunity which changed Kenedi’s life forever. In 2004 he was operated on his left eye and regained his sight. Now he is back in school studying to become an eye specialist, as he once stated.
Currently, it is estimated that there are more than 234, 000 Ethiopians who are corneal blind. All of them need eye transplants. At the moment, six hundred people are registered and waiting to receive a phone call from the Eye Bank of Ethiopia, stating that an eye donation has been found and transplant is possible in order to give them back their sight. The Eye Bank of Ethiopia is the second largest bank next to South Africa in the African continent and the only one in East Africa. In order to keep on giving the required service, the eye bank needs continuous eye donations. Today’s medical technology can’t keep the eye fresh for more than fourteen days so continuous pledges and donations are required.
How many of us are willing to give a part of our eyes, not the entire eye ball, just a small portion of it when we pass away? The small portion, Cornea, a clear transparent tissue covering the front portion of the eye, which will be taken out from our eye after we die, will be replaced with the same size cup and the difference is barley noticeable, but it is something thousands of Ethiopians need to gain their sight. We can pledge to give our eye with a small procedure by going to the Eye Bank of Ethiopia, at Menilik Ï hospital.
Samson Bekele, health worker and sociologist at the Eye Bank of Ethiopia, explains that one can pledge to donate. Samson said, “One can come and pledge any time, after we take a picture we will give them an Identification Card so that when they die, a family member or other party can learn of the pledge. We don’t have any kind of mechanism to follow the pledges, so what we hope for is a close family member who knows the wish and can tell us at the time of the donator’s death.” The cornea should be taken out in less than six hours of the time of the donor’s death. Samson also said that the mechanism the Ethiopian Eye Bank follows to collect the eye donation is suitable to benefit many Ethiopians, since close family members can also donate the eyes of their relatives at the time of death.
According to the health worker, getting the corneas from foreign countries is almost impossible since the processing expense is up to 800 USD for one cornea. It also needs additional expenses of more than thirty USD for Optisol, a reagent, to keep it fresh.
Following President Girma W/Giorgis, who has pledged to donate his eye at the time of death, 3080 people have played to donate their eyes when they die. Starting from June 28, 2003, two hundred fifty five Ethiopians have gained their sight with the transplant which was only possible with the eye donations. The transplant was only done in Addis Ababa in its early years but now Gondar University too is performing numbers of transplant operations.
Anybody above 18 years of age can go and pledge to donate, if not positive with Syphilis, Hepatitis B and C and HIV/AIDS. In his concluding remarks, Samson Bekele said, “Please don’t bury your sight with you. We have so many youth who can regain their sight and do wonderful things for their country. We beg every one to come and pledge to pass on their sight.”