Optometrist on a clear mission to improve eye care in Africa

Iftab Akram (37), of Masbrough, will fly out to Sierra Leone in West Africa in two weeks with charity Vision Aid Overseas.

Iftab, who works for Mid-Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust and as a part-time locum, will use his 13 years’ experience to help train local eye care workers, teach university students and deliver outreach by testing the eyes of people in rural places, in one of poorest countries in the world. 

It will be the father-of-two’s second assignment with Vision Aid Overseas after he visited Ethiopia in 2016 and he said he was looking forward to helping people “in desperate need”.

Iftab said: “I wanted to do something different from my day-to-day work and get involved with the charity to give something back. 

“I hope it will inspire others to.

“I have twin girls — Nusaybah and Ruqayyah (aged 5) — and I hope I inspire them to do charity work when they grow up.

“My wife Nahzia is really supportive.”

Instead of seeing his usual 40 patients a day, Iftab and four other volunteers will see around 200 Africans daily during the two-week trip.

“They do have (eye) diseases more specific to poorer places due to poor sanitation,” he said.

“There could be more tropical, fungal diseases which are less commonly found in the UK.”

Around 1.2 billion people worldwide cannot see clearly simply because they do not have a pair of glasses and 89 per cent of these live in developing countries.

Iftab said it was “amazing” to see people’s reaction when they are handed a pair of glasses, after struggling to see their whole life.

“It’s the reason I wanted to go overseas again with the charity,” he said. 

“If someone has quite a high prescription and you show them how much clearer their vision can be with glasses, their reaction, smile — it’s amazing.”

Iftab has urged people who have old spectacles lying around the house to donate them to their nearest opticians.

“Most opticians, like Specsavers and Scrivens, will have an agreement with Vision Aid Overseas to recycle donated glasses to countries in need,” he added.

“I’m really excited to take on this volunteering assignment, so many people around the world cannot access affordable eye care services and glasses like we can in the UK, but Vision Aid Overseas is working to change this.”

For more information visit www.visionaidoverseas.org.