ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Bausch + Lomb and Lions Club International Foundation have awarded two grants of $50,000 each through their collaborative effort, the Pediatric Cataract Initiative, to help reduce childhood blindness by preventing and treating cataract, according to a news release.
The grants were awarded to projects by ORBIS in South Africa and Zambia and to the International Centre for Eye Health in Bangladesh, the release said.
ORBIS will use the funds to help assess pediatric cataract surgical services in southern Africa and enhance efforts at Inkosi Albert Luthuli Central Hospital in South Africa and Kitwe Central Hospital in Zambia.
“Instead of only measuring our work through numbers of children who have cataract surgery, this grant will enable us to track the quality of surgical outcomes and factors affecting children’s access to services,” Larry Benjamin, FRCS, FRCOphth, of ORBIS Southern Africa and chair of the ORBIS Europe, Middle East and Africa program and medical advisory committee, said in the release.
The International Centre for Eye Health will lead a 5-year assessment of Bangladeshi children and evaluate the outcomes of their cataract surgeries.
“I am very excited about this opportunity to look at longer-term outcomes of cataract surgery in children in Bangladesh and to work with Child Slight Foundation,” Richard Bowman, FRCOphth, of the International Centre for Eye Health Bangladesh, said in the release.