EYE DISEASE IN MOROCCO

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27862, 10 January 1956, Page 11

EYE DISEASE IN MOROCCO

MEDICAL TEAMS’ CAMPAIGN AUREOMYCIN “MIRACLE OINTMENT” (From a Reuter Correspondent) PARIS. Medical “commandos" sweeping the arid plains and mountains of South Morocco are moving to end off a twoyear campaign against the dredded eye disease of trachoma, scourge of the Arabs. This disease, often spread by flies which swarm round the eyes of Arab babies, has. rendered an estimated 25.000 Moroccans blind. Seventeen mobile medical teams sponsored by French authorities, the World Health Organisation and the United Nations Children’s Fund, have examined the 340,000 Arab inhabitants of Southern Morocco and treated those suffering from the disease or its precursor, conjunctivitis. Aureomycin ointment, known as the “miracle ointment’’ to thousands of Arabs, is used to treat the* inflammation of conjunctivitis and the granular excrescences on the . inside of the lids of trachoma. When necessary, the sufferers are operated on in hospitals or mobile operating theatres. The task of the nodical men is complicated by the fact that many of their patients have already had their eyes treated by local “healers.” The remedies of these include spitting on the eyes, treating them with vulture’s gall, painting them with cosmetics, cutting off half the eyelids and applying a red hot iron to the temple. The campaign against eye diseases began with a “pilot campaign” in the Skoura region. Nearly all the 10.000 people in this area suffered from trachoma. Today, half of them have been completely cured by application of aureomycin ointment or operations, and the rest are on the road to recovery. Desert Trek by Patients After the success of this test, the campaign went into full swing, with medical teams reaching even the most outlying villages with all-purpose vehicles. Members of the teams, who worked in temperatures sometimes approaching 50 degrees centigrade in the shade, reported that the fame of the healing ointment brought men and women walking miles, often barefoot, to obtain a tube of it for themselves or their children. News of the presence of a medical team in the area was spread by the “Arab telephone"—the lightning passage of news by word of mouth which crosses even apparently uninhabited stretches of desert.

It was by this means that word of the men who restore sight reached the 40-year-old Saharan camel driver, Abdallah, in his home at Tindouf in the desert. He rode his camel 360 miles of Tagounit, one of the last outposts before the desert proper begins, and left it there. Then Abdallah, who was slowly becoming totally blind, headed for the eye hospital at Ouarzazate in the Anti-Atlas.

Abdallah had had trachoma from childhood. It was aggravated by conjunctivitis as a boy. In addition, he had been operated on in the marketplace of Tindouf by an Arab eye doctor, a Dadsi, a member of a tribe which practises eye surgery throughout Morocco. Using two reed stalks to turn up Abdallah’s eyelids, the Dadsi shortened them by half to stop the lashes irritating the cornea. After this the camel driver was unable to close his eyes as he led his camel in the glaring light and sandy winds of the Sahara.

At Ouarzazate, the doctors diagnosed purulent conjunctivitis, serious trachoma. ulcerating cornea and shortened eyelids, Abdallah would soon be completely blind. The only hope was to operate. Aureomycin ointment was used first to reduce inflammation and cure the trachoma. Then skin from Abdallah’s mouth was grafted on to his eyelids in four operations lasting three months. Abdallah was cured. He had been 10 months away from home on a 1200-mile trip, and it took him a month to find his camel again at Tagounit.

120 Operations in Three Days Typical of the doctors at Ouarzazate who saved Abdallah’s sight is Latvianborn Dr. Janis Reinhards. He is known among his colleagues for his feat in once performing 120 eye operations in three days. Operations are also carried out in a mobile operating theatre, a big white van specially designed for covering rough country. About 20 operations a day are performed upon patients, who spend about three days convalescing in tents set up round the van.

The medical teams reported that the campaign is having a striking success everywhere. In some districts, they have left tubes of aureomycin ointment in the hands of local men and women who go on treating sufferers after the “nomad,” medical teams have started twice-daily treatments for three days. Illustrated pamphlets in Arabic explain how to apply the ointment. In one isolated village, where treatment is in the hands of the inhabitants, severe conjunctivitis has been reduced to five per cent., compared with 36 per cent, last year. Out of 52 persons heading for total blindness last year, the sight of only 27 is now doomed. It is difficult to make the villagers understand the link between dirt, flies and trachoma. They regard flies as “harmless animals.” Another difficulty is that the dung heap is always kept close to the house, since manure is a very precious possession for making a few sparse crops grow in the arid soil.