Establishment Of The First Corneal Eye Bank In Pakistan

To establish the first corneal eye bank in Pakisan was the main purpose. It include encouragement of people to donate cornea to help poor deserving patients who are blind in one or both eyes due to Keratoconus, corneal injury , or other corneal diseases. Earlier in Faisalabad, corneas were received from foreign donations. It was a need of an hour to establish a registered and approved corneal bank. In 2017 Lyallpur eye trust was established after much difficulty because getting approval from local religious scholars was challenging. It was finally registered with Pakistan Human Organ Transplant Authority (PHOTA) and also with the Punjab charity commission. Afterwards patients started having locally retrieved fresh corneas without any delay.

Corneal bank was established and started working in the eye department of Allied hospital and Faisalabad medical university in 2017. Corneas are retrieved in the department which has corneal storage media and enough space with an available corneal retrieval kit. Keratoplasty is performed in a well-equipped eye operation theatre by a trained ophthalmologist in this field, a day or two after corneal retrieval.

The idea was conceived by our senior professor, head of department of ophthalmology in Allied hospital and Faisalabad Medical university .He worked hard to convince all the Islamic scholars and finally got their approval. Lyallpur trust was established in 2017 with 14 trustees including the CEO of health, Additional Deputy Commissioner General(ADGC) finance and planning, and12 philanthropists who bear trust expenses including the salary of the staff. It has7 staff members including 5 counselors. The donors get themselves registered prior with the written form countersigned by their two immediate family members. When the information is received regarding the demise of the donor, team members with storage media and a kit, reach the location.

In 2017, Corneas imported from Nepal( 5), USA(46), Kuwait(12) and Retrieved Locally through the persuasive effects of Lyallpur Eye trust (22). In 2018, Corneas imported from Nepal(0), the USA (48), Kuwait(14) and Retrieved Locally were (48).In 2019, only 25 corneas were received from the USA and 68 were retrieved locally. The rate was exponentially increasing until Covid hit in 2020 when 36 were retrieved locally and 8 were received from the USA. In 2021,2022 and 2023 none of the corneas is imported from foreign countries. Corneas retrieved locally in 2021 (68), 2022 (62) and in 2023 till date ,14 corneas are retrieved. It is quite an encouraging number for facilitation in the treatment and prevention of blindness in Pakistan.

After establishing the first working corneal bank in Faisalabad, in 2017, there is a marked decline in imports of foreign corneas. For the past approx 3 years none of the corneas is imported from outside the country and locally generated corneas are transplanted which are fresh and timely available in order to prevent blindness. Our next plan is to further improve the working of the eye bank by getting the latest equipment in specular microscopy to calculate donors' endothelial cell count. Facilitation of awareness programs on television and the internet regarding corneal donation amongst common people is foremost important. Improved brochures on corneal transplants, and corneal donation at all clinics and pharmacies should be available