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The Faculty of Optics and Optometry of the University of Murcia collaborates with the ONGD Azul en Acción (https://www.azulenaccion.com/) to bring visual aid to Senegal.
During this month of October, Azul en Acción will move a multidisciplinary team of professionals (ophthalmologists, anesthetists, optometrists, nurses and logisticians) to the Thiadiaye Hospital, located in Thiès, a region of some 300,000 inhabitants in western Senegal.
In this rural enclave the conditions of life are particularly precarious, with nutritional, hygienic and sanitary deficiencies, among them, endemic diseases such as malaria or yellow fever, for which visual health is left unattended.
Among eye diseases, cataract is the most prevalent in the country;
it leaves people relatively young blind, because the high rate of solar radiation favors their early appearance.
Cooperatives of Azul en Acción carry out solidarity campaigns for cataract surgery and optometric revision in Thiès.
Due to the lack of local infrastructure, they transport there a system of portable operating rooms called "Ophthalmological Hospital Ciudad de Murcia", which the staff of the NGDO has designed for that purpose.
They also address vision problems that can be solved with prescription glasses, especially cases of presbyopia in adults and myopia in children.
It is a completely disinterested work, and the glasses are delivered free of charge to their recipients (https://www.azulenaccion.com/noticias/senegal-2017/).
To do this, they travel with a stock of glasses of different spherical graduation, and after the optometric examination performed in situ, the most appropriate graduation is delivered.
Glasses mounted at the University of Murcia
This year, part of the glasses that Azul en Acción will take to Senegal have been assembled in the Faculty of Optics and Optometry of the University of Murcia.
Several students of the Degree in Optics-Optometry, supervised by the professors Mª Esther Berrio López and Eloy Ángel Villegas Ruiz, and by the optometrist of Azul en Acción Jefry Tahery, have assembled about a hundred glasses of solidarity of different graduations, using the facilities of practices available to the Faculty of the UMU.
To this end, frames in good condition have been donated by individuals, and lenses donated by the company Essilor.
These glasses will help teachers from rural schools in Senegal to continue teaching, as children who see the blackboard blurred do not drop out of school.
The Faculty of Optics and Optometry of the UMU is working to give continuity to this solidarity partnership with Azul en Acción.
Source: Universidad de Murcia
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