Orbis celebrates 2024 highlights

Orbis UK has looked back on the impact of its projects in 2024, with Kate Gannon, deputy director of programme funding at Orbis UK, telling OT: “With our dedicated partners we’re working to ensure no-one has to live with avoidable blindness.”

The Orbis Flying Eye Hospital completed two sight-saving missions, to Mongolia and Bangladesh.

Clinical staff from Orbis and volunteer medical experts provided surgical, patient care and simulation training, as well as ophthalmic workshops to local doctor and nursing teams.

The projects focused on the ophthalmic sub-specialities of cataracts, glaucoma, and cornea, as well as anaesthesia, nursing, and biomedical engineering, to help improve adult and paediatric eye care in both countries.

In Bangladesh, the Orbis Women-Led Green Vision Centres screened nearly 26,000 people – more than half being women and girls.

Women make up 55% of the world’s visually impaired population, while two-thirds of children who are blind are girls.

Orbis noted that, by being women-led, the centres help to address a number of barriers for women and girls, improving access to eye care for all.

In 2024, Orbis also marked 25 years of saving sight in India, and celebrated a new dedicated children’s eye care unit in Odisha.

In Ethiopia, the organisation helped to administer 1.3 million doses of sight-saving antibiotics to tackle trachoma. The charity shared that there has been progress towards the goal of eliminating trachoma from Ethiopia by 2030, but “there is still more to be done.”

The free telemedicine platform run by Orbis, Cybersight, reached 100,000 users, helping to train more practitioners to prevent avoidable sight loss in their countries.

Orbis UK / Geoff Oliver Bugbee

Bayarkhuu, aged 3, preparing for surgery on board the Flying Eye Hospital in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

Orbis also hosted the annual Visionaries reception, attended by Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Edinburgh, in her role as global ambassador for the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness.

Gannon commented: “Thanks to our supporters, we achieved some big milestones in 2024. From establishing two more Women-Led Green Vision Centres in Odisha, India, helping to reach an additional 200,000 people, to screening over 30,000 tea estate workers in Bangladesh.”

Orbis has plans to expand its outreach further still in the year ahead. Plans include delivering more mass drug administrations in Ethiopia to help reach the global goal of trachoma elimination by 2030.

The charity also intends to train more healthcare professionals to prevent and treat vision loss in Zambia.

Gannon told OT: “With our partners we are also aiming to screen almost 2,000 babies and children in Mongolia for retinopathy of prematurity, whilst training ophthalmologists to spot the condition, helping to safeguard the sight of thousands for generations to come.”