Human resources development for the prevention of blindness in Anglophone West Africa

As recent as 1986, acute shortage of qualified manpower was one of the major difficulties in the prevention of blindness in Africa. Following the WHO sub-regional workshop on Manpower development for Prevention of Blindness, the West African Health Community in collaboration with the National Prevention of Blindness programmes in Anglophone West Africa made concerted efforts at developing appropriate manpower at all levels of eye care. Eight categories of eye care workers were identified and personnel to population ratios adopted for each. Curriculum was developed and training begun for two new cadres-Primary Eye care Trainers and Diplomate Ophthalmologist. These are expected to boost the training of Integrated Eye Care workers for primary eye care and increase surgical services, especially cataract surgery rates, at secondary eye care level respectively. There are constraints and difficulties but the support provided by two non-government organisations (Sight Savers International and Christoffel Blindenmission) had been helpful in overcoming some of these. Significant progress has been made in the last decade in developing the required manpower but large deficits still remain. The political will, commitment and co-operation of all stakeholders would be required to achieve the desired targets for the next decade.