U of A ophthalmology research students Imran Jivraj and Jonathan Wan left for Cameroon last week. They will train hospital employees to run the retinal camera, then spend their evenings teaching people how to type with a keyboard and how to use a computer mouse.The two students will also study the prevalence of diabetes in Cameroon, which is so far unknown. Tennant believes diabetes seems much more severe in the African country, based on the eye images he has seen of diabetic retinopathy.
Abshir Moalin, Jonathan Wan and Imran Jivras with a Topcon retinal camera they have taken to Cameroon.
Codie McLachlan/Edmonton Journal
Ophthalmology students deliver equipment and training to fight blindness
Jodie Sinnema, edmontonjournal.com
Published: Monday, July 23
EDMONTON – When Dr. Dieter Lemke began volunteering in Cameroon in 1972, there was only one local ophthalmologist to look after 7.5 million people.
Most of them couldn’t afford the trip to the coastal hospital and couldn’t get help as their vision clouded with cataracts or was lost to glaucoma.
“There was a whole lot more blind people around,” said Lemke, thinking back on the 13 years he spent in the western African country as a medical missionary and bush doctor.
Ismailimail 