By Anne Mugisa

UGANDA will soon be able to carry out human organ transplants. President Yoweri Museveni, said the Government would provide funds for the equipment.

He was yesterday presiding over the World Sight Day celebrations at the Kampala Sheraton Hotel, held under the theme ‘Gender and Eye Health: Equal Access to Care’. The surgeries will include cornea transplants to restore the sight of the blind.

Museveni noted that one percent of the Ugandan population suffer from eye diseases, 80% of which are curable.
He asked the doctors to identify the equipment so that the Government can purchase it.

The state minister for health, James Kakooza, said the Government was working on a law on organ transplant.
The president of the Ophthalmologists Society, Dr. Anne Ampeire, said a cornea bank would be opened up soon.

World Health Organisation representative Dr. Joaquim Saweka said 45 million people in the world were blind the majority of whom are women and girls and in the developing world.