More than 200 Nigerians are currently awaiting corneal transplants as about 1.5 per cent of the country’s population live with corneal blindness, the Eye Bank for Restoring Sight in Nigeria has said.
The Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Eye Bank, Dr Festus Odunayo Oshoba, disclosed this recently in Lagos at the unveiling of veteran actress Ms Joke Silva as the organisation’s brand ambassador.
Oshoba said the Eye Bank had facilitated more than 95 successful corneal transplants over the years, including 19 involving children aged between 30 months and 18 years.
He said corneas had also been successfully harvested from two Nigerian donors who pledged to donate their corneas before their deaths in 2010 and 2012.
According to him, the organisation is working towards developing a national register to provide accurate data on Nigerians who have undergone corneal transplantation and those who have regained their sight.
He said: “1.5 per cent of the country’s population are currently living with corneal blindness. We have facilitated about a hundred. We are still trying to collate the data to have a national register to know how many have regained their sight and those that have had transplants.”
Oshoba urged Nigerians to embrace corneal donation, saying the practice could enable people with reversible blindness to regain their sight after the death of a donor.
“We need to talk to our people that somebody you know might be a beneficiary of the organ you are donating. We have tarried enough; now we have to run. That we live for one another is the whole essence of humanity,” he said.
He identified cultural and religious beliefs, as well as misconceptions surrounding organ harvesting, as major challenges to corneal donation in Nigeria.
The Eye Bank, he said, is particularly concerned about how to facilitate the timely retrieval of corneas in cases where religious practices require the deceased to be buried within a short period.
“The aim of having this symposium today is to create awareness that when you pass on, you can still keep on living. You can donate a part of your body when you are alive so that, when you are gone, this part will be removed and given to somebody who will use it,” Oshoba said.
He said the Eye Bank’s mission includes providing donor corneas and other tissues for transplantation, raising public awareness about cornea donation, training personnel involved in tissue harvesting and developing partnerships with local and international eye-banking centres.
Oshoba added that the organisation was also working to encourage ophthalmologists to take greater interest in corneal grafting and the treatment of corneal diseases.
The Eye Bank was established in 2004 as a joint project of the Ophthalmological Society of Nigeria and the Federal Nigeria Society for the Blind to promote the donation, collection, preservation and use of transplantable corneas.
The organisation’s office, provided by the Lagos State Government, is located within the Eye Institute Complex of the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, LASUTH, Ikeja.
Speaking on the challenges confronting corneal transplantation in Nigeria, the Medical Director of the Eye Bank, Dr Mosunmade Faderin, said the organisation was currently faced with a significant shortage of donated corneas.
Faderin said the Eye Bank was a non-profit organisation dedicated to combating corneal blindness through the collection, preservation and distribution of donor eye tissues for sight-restoring corneal transplants, medical education and research.
She explained that the cornea is the transparent front part of the eye and that corneal transplantation does not necessarily involve removing the entire eye.
“The cornea is that clear part in front of the eyes. We are not taking out the whole eye,” she said.
Faderin said some Nigerians, particularly children, had lost their sight from preventable or treatable conditions, including childhood infections, because suitable donor corneas were not available.
She cited cases of children at schools for the blind whose sight could potentially have been restored through corneal transplantation if donor tissues had been available.
According to her, the Eye Bank has facilitated several sight-restoring procedures through its “Seeing is Believing” programme, including bringing corneal surgeons to Nigeria to perform transplants and demonstrate the feasibility of using donated corneas to restore sight.
She said the organisation had facilitated life-changing interventions for numerous Nigerians but noted that stigma and misconceptions surrounding corneal donation continued to discourage beneficiaries from speaking publicly about their experiences.
Faderin disclosed that more than 200 patients were currently on the Eye Bank’s waiting list, underscoring the need for increased cornea donations.
She said the Eye Bank had been conducting awareness campaigns in churches, clubs, Rotary and Lions organisations, private institutions and communities to promote cornea and organ donation.
She appealed to Nigerians who had signed donor pledges to ensure their families were aware of their wishes.
“It is not that some people have signed the donor form, but when they die, their families don’t get to talk to us. There is no way we can know the person has passed,” she said.
Faderin urged relatives of registered donors to contact hospitals or relevant organisations immediately after the donor’s death so that the cornea could be harvested within the medically required period.
She said corneas generally needed to be harvested within 24 hours after death, particularly where the body had been properly cooled and not embalmed.
The medical director said the Eye Bank was seeking to make Nigeria self-sufficient in corneal procurement and transplantation, reducing the country’s dependence on imported donor tissues.
She said plans included strengthening partnerships with tertiary hospitals, expanding public awareness and donor registration across Nigeria, establishing a corneal preservation and training centre, and securing international grants and technical support to improve facilities and training.
The organisation, she added, had received support from the Lagos State Government, the Ophthalmological Society of Nigeria, the Federal Nigeria Society for the Blind, Yoruba Tennis Club, Jagal Foundation, CMC Connect, media partners and other individuals and philanthropic organisations.
At the event, beneficiaries and relatives of
cornea donors shared personal experiences to demonstrate the impact of donation.
One beneficiary, Abisade Oguntibeji, said he regained his sight after undergoing a corneal transplant in 2022 following a severe bacterial corneal ulcer that had significantly impaired his vision.
Oguntibeji said he had initially explored treatment options outside Nigeria after being told that corneal transplantation was difficult to access locally.
He eventually underwent the procedure and said he began seeing on the same day.
Before the surgery, he said, he could not perform basic activities independently, including eating, reading his Bible and using the toilet.
“Immediately they did the transplant, I started seeing,” he said, expressing gratitude to the medical team and the Eye Bank for facilitating access to the procedure.
Another speaker, Kunleola Sodipo, recounted how his family donated the corneas of his late brother, who had indicated in his will that he wanted to become a cornea donor.
Sodipo said his brother was killed in 2010 and that the family initially had to overcome legal and emotional challenges before the corneas could be harvested.
He said his brother’s wishes were eventually honoured and the two corneas were used for two different recipients.
According to him, meeting the beneficiaries helped the family understand the significance of the donation and strengthened their resolve to promote cornea donation.
He urged Nigerians to consider donating their organs and tissues after death, describing it as a way of allowing part of a deceased person to continue helping others.
Fola Akande, another family member of a cornea donor, also recounted how her mother’s corneas were harvested after her sudden death in September 2012.
Akande said her mother, who had been active in church the day before her death, had her corneas harvested within 18 hours of her death.
She said the donated corneas were successfully transplanted and the recipients were still benefiting from the donation.
Akande said the experience encouraged members of her family to become organ donors.
The speakers also identified cultural, religious and social misconceptions as major barriers to organ and tissue donation in Nigeria.
Faderin said some Nigerians feared that donating organs would interfere with traditional burial practices or that recipients could be stigmatised for using another person’s body part.
She urged religious leaders, community leaders, journalists and civil society organisations to help correct misconceptions and promote accurate information about donation.
In her remarks after being unveiled as the Eye Bank’s brand ambassador, Silva said she accepted the role because of the importance of public advocacy in improving healthcare outcomes.
The actress, who comes from a family with strong links to medicine and public health, said medical professionals could not solve Nigeria’s healthcare challenges alone and that public participation and advocacy were equally important.
She said Nigeria needed to build stronger local capacity to meet its healthcare needs rather than continually depending on other countries.
Silva called on Nigerians to support initiatives that could save lives and improve the quality of life of others.
She described cornea donation as a unique
form of giving because it could allow a person to continue making an impact after death.
The Eye Bank said Silva’s appointment was expected to strengthen its advocacy efforts and encourage more Nigerians to register as cornea donors.
The organisation reiterated its appeal to Nigerians to discuss their donation wishes with their families and ensure that relatives are prepared to honour those wishes after death.
It said increased donations would help reduce the number of Nigerians living with avoidable or reversible corneal blindness and move the country closer to self-sufficiency in corneal transplantation.