Ramayamma International Eye Bank (RIEB), Hyderabad is planning to open an eye donation centre in each district of Andhra Pradesh soon. In 2002, RIEB had received 1, 292 eye donations and from January 2003, it has received 980 eye donations.
RIEB is a member of the International Federation of Eye & Tissue Banks, USA and The Eye Bank Association of India.
It is the first organization to produce and distribute Corneal Preservation Medium. The International Federation of Eye & Tissue Banks, Baltimore, USA supports the production of this medium. The MK medium is distributed to various eye banks nationally.
The Hospital Cornea Retrieval Program of RIEB which is first such program in India involves grief counselors placed in multi speciality hospitals for counseling and motivating bereaved family members to make an eye donation. About 60% of the total corneas are procured through this program. Eye Donation Fortnight is observed between August 25 and September 8, every year.
RIEB has recently received a major grant from ORBIS International, USA and Eye Sight International, Canada, for a project called 'ORBIS- ESI- LVPEI- International Training and Resource Centre for Eye Banking and Cornea Fellowship'. The objectives of the three-year project are to impart training in eye banking techniques and corneal transplantation to eye bank techniques and Ophthalmologists respectively and to establish an organ culture laboratory to explore the possibility of enhancing the pool of donors. The research project is titled 'The Applicability of Organ Culture Technique for Meeting the Demand for Quality, Quantity and Safety of Donor Corneas for Transplantation.
There is an estimated 45 million blind people worldwide. Unless major preventive initiatives are taken this figure could go double by the year 2020. In India, around 2 million people are affected by Corneal Blindness and 60% of them are below the age of 12 years. More than 2 lakh corneas are needed every year, but only 17,000 corneas reach eye banks across India each year.