Orbis Bangladesh Celebrates World Prematurity Day

Backed by our amazing partner Deep Eye Care Foundation, activities were geared towards the theme ‘Together for Babies Born too soon - Caring for the Future’ to highlight the challenges in eye health when it comes to saving premature babies’ sight — as well as the solutions to fight it.

In Bangladesh, an estimated 400,000 mothers deliver pre-term babies each year. Among them, around 12.5% are preterm births in rural areas where there is a heightened risk of retinopathy of prematurity.

Below, hear more about how our Bangladesh team and our partners raised awareness of retinopathy of prematurity and its impact across four regions of the country.

PROMOTIONAL MATERIAL

Orbis Bangladesh designed and distributed 1,000 posters to partners across the country sharing messages on preventing blindness among neonates to educate communities on retinopathy of prematurity and its treatment.

ROP MEDICAL SEMINAR

Our partner Deep Eye Care Foundation led a seminar on ROP at their center in Rangpur. Around 150 participants including ophthalmologists, surgeons, medical officers, nurses and health workers attended. Eye health professionals then got involved in a Q&A session to learn more about ROP, its treatment and services.

Speakers urged eye health care organizations, government, NGOs and other stakeholders to work together in order to eradicate ROP related blindness from the Rangpur region.

WORLD PREMATURITY DAY RALLY

The Deep Eye Care Foundation and Mazharul Haque BNSB Eye Hospital organized a rally within COVID-19 safety guidelines - drawing attention to the impact of retinopathy of Prematurity. Around 500 participants attended in various locations across the country.

MEDIA COVERAGE

On World Prematurity Day, the Bangladesh Neonatal Forum, Save the Children and UNICEF organized a virtual round table discussion. 'Daily Prothom Alo' (a national leading Bangla newspaper) published an awareness piece to inform medical professionals and the readers around the health issues of newborn babies including retinopathy of prematurity.

Facebook channel 'Doctor TV' featured a news segment on retinopathy of prematurity highlighting Orbis’s contribution to screenings and treatment services in Bangladesh. Watch it here.

We'd like to take this opportunity to say a big thank you to all our committed partners in Bangladesh for helping to coordinate these effective World Prematurity Day events as well as their collaborative efforts educating communities and supporting us in the expansion of ROP services to combat childhood blindness.