Children going blind in the city

The visually impaired children of Ruga

Muhammed Mubarak is 10 years old.

Pus has been running from his eyes for the past three years.

He lives in Ruga, a slum behind Wuye, one of the districts of Nigeria’s capital Abuja.

The residents of Ruga live on snacks and in shanties. No access to water, no basic health services.

Adamu, Mubarak’s three-year-old brother was born with the same eye problem.

Their father says both boys can see partially, though not for some time.

He and his wife have used different home remedies to ease their sons’ pain. Nothing has worked well.

Around 30 children in the community have the same eye problem. Volunteer teacher Mark Okere, who operates a primary school in the community, sees them every day.

“In my school alone, we have about eight of the students having this ailment,” says Okere.

 A mother, Barahatu Ibrahim, disclosed that three of her children have the same problem.

“We are really worried,” she says. "The recent one is my youngest son which is close to one year old.

“The eye problem started like a week ago. We woke up to find pus in the boy’s eyes, and decided to apply eye drop on it. After a while we did not experience any change, we decided to apply salt and warm water.

“When this thing first started, we thought it was teething issue, but we now realized that the reverse is the case.”

Suleiman Aliyu, 50, has three children with the eye problem. They were all born in Ruga, and he’s lived there for more than 20 years.

"The last child of the family who is totally blind was taken to a specialist hospital in Kaduna state, with the intervention of some non-governmental organization.

“We noticed that his eyes have been bad right from birth. With the help of the Vaccine Network for Disease Control, there has been positive development.”

"He was first taken to Wuse general hospital, and later moved to a specialist hospital in Kano state. I believe that the ailment is an act of God, and cannot really do so much regarding this, due to financial factor,” he says.

The district health authorities are only trying to come to terms with the problem, which is becoming endemic.

"The condition we have at hand is called eye defect; it can be corrected with the use of medicated glass. If they do not have the need for it, they will be directed to where they can access medication,” says Dr Uzoma Ugbonna, an epidemiologist with Abuja’s public health department.

“I want to believe that the optometrist will be in the best position to assess what is wrong with them."

Beyond local health authorities and the concerns of parents of Ruga, the federal health ministry has ruled out an epidemic.

“There is no epidemic in the community,” says Dr Okolo Oteri, a consultant coordinating the national eye programme at the federal health ministry.

“We came to check if the condition was true as it was reported, if there was an epidemic or a situation whereby there is an infection.

""We have seen one child blind, and two others with other eye-threatening condition called congenital conjunctivitis. The other child has a condition called euphymitis which was not properly treated and managed."

"Another kid has a condition called complicated cataract. We have some eye disease that we will find in some normal population.

“The issue with the community is lack of access to basic health care services allergy, and lot of untreated refractive errors. We want to state that there is no epidemic in the community.”

Vaccine Network for Disease Control adopted Ruga as its host community for health intervention, women empowerment and education, then discovered several children with eye problems.

“During our normal intervention, we discovered that more than twenty of the children are having eye defect, and some were partially blind,” says Chika Offor, the network’s chief operating officer.

"The mother of one of the children was the first to hint us about the development. We sent a letter to NPHCDA [National Primary Health Care Development Agency], AMAC [Abuja Municipal Area Council], and other relevant health agencies to inform them of the latest development in the community.

“Initially the residents were sceptical about receiving help from relevant health agencies, they were really not coming out when we were questioning them, but when they found out that we treated the other boys, they started coming out.”

Mubarak and his brother

New development in Ruga

With several intervention by the Ministry of Health and the Federal Capital Territory Health authority, the children in the community were given recommended glass, and were also placed on medication.

Speaking about the situation in the community, a resident of the community disclosed that there is so much challenge in the aspect of health and water and other social amenities.

"The situation of partial blindness continues because we have one child completely blind now.

“Recently, we took a two-year-old boy, by name, Buhari Suleiman, to the National Ear Centre, and found out that the baby is completely blind.

"We still have some of the children still in that condition, and we are calling on Nongovernmental organisation, and the country to come to the resident of the community. We don't want the children to experience partial blindness.

The present situation is that some of the children are supposed to go for treatment, but due to financial issues.”

An epidemiologist, who prefers to remain anonymous, pointed out that the situation in Ruga is due to environmental factor.

He added that the government should come to the aid of the resident by providing potable water.

"Any community that do not have good source of water is prone to all form of disease and sickness. The drainage system is not also in good form. Cleanliness is also critical at this stage,” he says.

While all those decisions and being mulled, Mubarak is still partially blind, unable to go to school, his learning cut short, his future uncertain.