Silicone spectacles for just 1 dollar!

Inexpensive glasses that allow people to correct their eyesight problems themselves? What a stroke of genius! The World Bank has announced the launch of just such a project which will help a billion people with eyesight problems in disadvantaged countries to see clearly once more. What’s special about these glasses is that they use corrective lenses with two flexible membranes containing silicone oil.

With the aid of two small vials on the arms of the glasses, wearers can pump the silicone to adjust their vision. “The lenses become more convex or concave depending on whether the person is long-sighted or short-sighted”, the World Bank explains. And once the “lenses” have been adjusted, the vials can be removed from the arms.

This idea was developed in laboratories at Oxford University in England and is the fruit of collaboration between the World Bank and the British NGO Adaptive Eyecare Limited. These glasses will be sold at just one dollar a pair.

With only one optometrist (an eyesight specialist who is not a doctor) for every million inhabitants, the arrival of these glasses could signal a spectacular improvement for the population of Africa. Just like in Ghana, where 10,000 pairs were distributed under a pilot project. “Seventy per cent of those who received glasses were able to correct their eyesight themselves at least as well if not better than a professional optometrist, the World Bank reports with delight. This is a marvellous example of a project that is both inexpensive and simple to put in place but likely to bring about a concrete improvement in literacy in the world’s poorest countries. And will also lead to social and economic progress.