Med center grant will aid vision care in West Africa

UNMC and the Truhlsen Eye Institute will team with partners from across the U.S. to develop and support a new West African Center of Excellence in Vision Care.

UNMC’s connection is led by Steven Yeh, MD, the Stanley Truhlsen Jr. Endowed Chair in Ophthalmology, who came to UNMC in 2021 and brings experience treating Ebola patients whose infections affect their eyes and have the potential for sight-threatening eye disease.

A $300,000 grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development and its American Schools and Hospitals Abroad program will build on that experience and Dr. Yeh’s collaborations with Sierra Leone ophthalmologists since 2015.

The Center of Excellence aims to impact clinical care overall, improve biomedical research and provide educational opportunities for eye care providers in Sierra Leone. The West Africa Center of Excellence in Vision Care will be developed in partnership with Ministry of Health and Sanitation (MOHS) leadership — Jalikatu Mustapha, MBChB, the National Eye Programme Director — and at the Lowell and Ruth Gess Eye Hospital with Lloyd Harrison-Williams, MBChB, a MOHS ophthalmologist who trained with Dr. Yeh in retina and uveitis. 

Dr. Yeh said it’s important for UNMC to take a leadership role globally in understanding Ebola, other emerging infections and their vision health consequences. Beyond that, UNMC is well-positioned to promote health security in West Africa and advance U.S. public diplomacy through the USAID American Schools and Hospitals Abroad initiative.

With ophthalmology care being a major focus on the grant, Dr. Yeh said the eye often can serve as a window into a person’s systemic health and infectious diseases, too.

“It’s important that we realize that emerging infectious diseases, like Ebola, COVID-19 and other emerging infections, also can have ocular consequences,” Dr. Yeh said. “This program will allow us to strengthen our already collaborative relationships, so that we can understand these conditions and learn from one another.”

Ronald Krueger, MD, director of the Stanley M. Truhlsen Eye Institute and the McGaw Memorial Professor and chairman of the UNMC Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, said Dr. Yeh’s expertise and passion for studying emerging infectious diseases and their impact on the eye has led him to become a pioneer for advancing eye care in West Africa.

Said Dr. Krueger, “In addition to securing an NIH-funded research grant to study the long-term consequence of Ebola through ocular biosurveillance, and now this USAID grant to support Excellence in Vision Care, he has established the first vitreoretinal surgery effort in Sierra Leone and empowered local ophthalmologists to become trained in this area.

“The USAID grant will provide key resources to allow him to take eye care to the next level in West Africa.”

Through the grant, UNMC is partnering with the F.I. Proctor Foundation for Research in Ophthalmology at the University of California-San Francisco, Emory University in Atlanta and a United States academic consortium. Within UNMC, the effort includes the College of Medicine and the Truhlsen Eye Institute, the College of Public Health and the Global Center for Health Security, where Dr. Yeh has been named a scholar.

In promoting the interests of the USAID, the team will be leveraging U.S. best practices in health care for vision health services, innovative biomedical research and gender equity initiatives in scientific and medical education.

Lowell and Ruth Gess Eye Hospital will be renovated in collaboration with Central Global Vision Fund, a leading NGO partner, as part of the initiative. Recently, the effort established a retina surgical unit in Freetown, Sierra Leone, and plans to further develop those types of eye care services.

With the first retina surgeries being performed recently in Sierra Leone, this marks an i­mportant step in vision care, research and education across multiple ophthalmic disciplines in West Africa.

“To be able to partner with MOHS ophthalmologists in Sierra Leone in the retina program launch to assist both Ebola survivors and citizens of West Africa has been one of the most exciting things that I’ve ever been a part of,” Dr. Yeh said. “With all of these efforts, we hope this marks an exciting beginning to advance this work between UNMC, our academic partners and our dear friends and colleagues in West Africa.”