Establishment Of First Working Corneal Eye Bank In Pakistan

Improvement in development of local corneal banking in Pakistan was the main purpose .It included encouragement of the people to donate cornea to help poor deserving patients who are legally blind in one or both eyes due to keratoconus , corneal opacity , corneal injury or any other treatable corneal diseases.Earlier in Faisalabad, corneas were recieved 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  difficulty specially in getting approval from local religious scholars . It was finally registered with Pakistan Human Organ Transplant Authority (PHOTA). After that patients started having locally retrieved fresh corneas without any delay .

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

Lyallpur trust has 14 trustees including Chief Executive Officer CEO of health ,Additional Deputy Commissioner General(ADGC) finance and planning  and 12 philanthropist who bear trust expenses including salary of the staff. This trust is also registered in Punjab charity commission. It has 7 staff members including 5 counselors who are 24hrs on call .The donors get themselves registered prior with the written form countersigned by their immediate two family members . When the information is recieved regarding demise of the donor two team members and a medical officer with storage media and kit , reached the location as soon as possible to retrieve cornea. The shortlisted patients for keratoplasty are called in afterwards. 

In 2017, Corneas imported from Nepal( 5), USA(46), Kuwait(12) and Retrieved Locally from through the persuasive effects of Lyallpur Eye trust (22). In 2018, Corneas imported from Nepal(0), USA (48), Kuwait(14) and Retrieved Locally (48).In 2019, only 25 corneas recieved from USA and 68 were retrieved locally. The rate was exponentially increasing until Covid hit in 2020 when 36 were retrieved locally and 8 were recieved from USA. In 2021,2022 and 2023 none of the cornea is imported from foreign countries. Cornea retrieved locally in 2021 (68), 2021(62) and in 2023 till date (19 th march ),14 corneas are retrieved. It is quite an encouraging number for facilitation in 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 cornea is imported from outside 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 in working of eye bank by getting latest equipments of specular microscopy to calculate donors endothelial cell count. Facilitation of awareness programs on television and internet regarding corneal donation amongst common people are foremost important. Improved brochures  on corneal diseases , corneal transplant and corneal donation at all clinics and pharmacies should be available.