Oftamológico center at the foot of Kilimanjaro is Champalimaud Prize – publico

                 

                         
                     

                         
                     

                 

 
                         

It all began 20 years ago in the imagination of a couple of American doctors. Five years later, they moved to Tanzania, Africa, with two young children, and founded in the city of Moshi – at the foot of Kilimanjaro – the Community of Kilimanjaro Ophthalmology Center (KCCO)

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                         Today, KCCO has worked in a number of countries to develop sustainable programs for prevention and treatment of blindness caused by cataracts, glaucoma and other eye diseases, from children to seniors. And one day aims to cover all African countries, enabling populations of that continent, even the most remote, universal access to eye care quality.

This network of hospitals and of people (doctors, nurses, managers, public health specialists) is one of the winners of the Prize António Champalimaud Vision 2015. And along with it, the share premium – an amount one million euros, the most important prize in the world in this area – two other organizations also dedicated to the eradication of blindness globally and have funded and collaborated with KCCO, over the years, under the so-called Project Kilimanjaro: the SEVA Foundation (US-based) and SEVA Canada.

“I loved clinical medicine and 1990-1994, had been with my husband working in Malawi,” said the PUBLIC during a morning talk at the headquarters of the Champalimaud Foundation in Lisbon, hours before the ceremony for the award, the ophthalmologist Susan Lewallen, relating how she and her husband Paul Courtright, public health specialist and ophthalmic epidemiology, embarked on this adventure in 2001.

It was in Malawi they realized that the problem of access to eye health care in Africa “went far beyond the shortage of doctors: from the suture material end up in the middle of an operation to the fact that many Patients did not even know they were blind, or how to access care available. ” He adds with a smile, “You know, surgeons do not usually care about public health issues …”

The couple returned from Malawi to the United States, where he would remain for seven years, but without ever leaving . to think that one day return there to create a center for different ophthalmic

The decision to leave had to be taken faster than they had expected: “I had health problems at that time and did not know how long it would take to complete the project, “continues Susan Lewallen, now 61 years old. “And since our children were small, also thought we should leave as soon as possible, as this would be the best possible education for them.”

“We were wondering and talking about the project between 1996 and 1998. We had many problems to raise the necessary funds but, in September 2011, we had already chosen our destination: Moshi, where we knew that we would welcome, where there was a university with a training program in ophthalmology – and where there was an international school for children. “

It was then that occurred the attacks of September 11. “At that time, we had already sold our home and I had already warned my office colleagues of my departure indefinitely for Africa. So we decided to go anyway. “

Susan Lewallen also recalls the shock of moving to” almost the middle of nowhere. ” “We arrived during the dry season. There was such a layer of dust on the road that my children fall while trying to ride a bike. They cried and asked to return to the US and I thought, ‘My God, that was crazy …’ “

But at Christmas, the family visited an animal reserve and then everything improved. “When we entered, elephants came to meet us, we spend zebras and the boys exclaimed, ‘This is our best Christmas ever!” Today, they have 25 and 23 years; the oldest works in the Peace Corp in Senegal and the other intends to return to Africa. “

In 2012, the couple moved to Cape Town, South Africa, from where he continues to manage scientific research and administrative issues KCCO.

Susan Lewallen also points out how it started “trying to teach aspects as important public health” in Moshi hospital. “We had tremendous help from the Aravind Eye Hospital in India [laureate same Champalimaud Prize in 2007]. “We went there, we took the Moshi personnel for them to do training, and managed to adapt their model to the African reality.”