Summary:
- Experts say one in three people need glasses, but many go without because of cost, lack of awareness and limited facilities
- Children are locked out of learning opportunities
- People in jobs like driving and nursing, that depend on good vision, may be risking lives.
When Dominic Gbordoe completed high school this year, his biggest challenge wasn’t exams. It was simply seeing the blackboard. The 23-year-old found his vision starting to become blurry several years ago.
By 2023 it was having a big impact on his schooling.
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“When I sit in the back, I don’t see anything,” he says. “I only see well when I sit very close to the front.”
A visit to the New Sight Eye Clinic in June confirmed that Gbordoe had myopia or shortsightedness. He was advised to get a pair of glasses that cost $US100. One month later, he still did not have them.
“At least if they were to say $US50 or $US60, it was going to be ok,” he says. “Because I’m living with my uncle who is not working, and I am also not working. Which means I will not get the glasses.”
For Gbordoe, every day without glasses is a missed opportunity. He wants to continue his education but fears his poor eyesight will make it difficult.
Gbordoe is one of, what is likely, at least a million Liberians facing this challenge. Across the country, vision problems go untreated because people cannot afford glasses or do not understand their condition. A 2021 national survey by the Ministry of Health found that 85 percent of Liberians who need glasses “do not currently have access to them.”
School children like Gbordoe are suffering in school and missing out on opportunities. But experts warn many more people are having their livelihoods impacted and endangering themselves and others.
People who can’t read prescription risk overdosing on medicine, for example. Drivers who need vision correction for distance are putting people’s lives in danger. Nurses and others who need precision eyesight to draw blood or give injections may be forced from employment or risk the health of patients.
In Liberia, people face a range of challenges in getting glasses. There are vision centers where they can be diagnosed and buy glasses in just seven locations in counties around the country. A lack of information means many people don’t even know that their decreasing eyesight is easily correctable with glasses.
The cost of glasses is also an obstacle in a country where about 19 percent of Liberians, or roughly one in five, live on less than $US2 a day, according to World Bank 2023 data.
There is no company that manufacturers glasses here. All have to be imported. Prices for prescription glasses ranges from $US60 to $US250. A basic pair costs between $US60 and $US80. The same lenses in Luanda, Angola, from where many pairs of glasses in Liberia are ordered, are priced between $US31 and $US69, before shipping and markup costs.
“People come without expecting that glasses might be the solution to their problem,” says Alfred Bonah, an optician at Monrovia’s John F. Kennedy Hospital. “Secondly some of them will not have the money on hand to pay for the glasses so they will have to go back and look for the money to come back and pay for the glasses.”
Lack of Access to Glasses a Major Challenge in the Poorest Countries
According to a World Health Organization’s 2019 World Report on Vision about one in three people globally are myopic – meaning they can’t see distances – and one in five have presbyopia – meaning they can’t see close up and need glasses to read. Presbyopia is a major factor as we age. Almost every human will need reading glasses at some point after they reach the age of 45. But in poor countries like Liberia, many people will not have them.
“The price should not be that very high, because these are conditions that are blinding people” says, Alison Paygar, country director for OneSight EssilorLuxottica Foundation, the nonprofit arm of a global eyeglass company that has supported eyesight programs in Liberia since 2017.
With age related vision loss, Pastor Mervin Vaye a 61-year-old resident of the Larkpazee community in Monrovia, relies on glasses for almost everything: reading his Bible, preparing sermons, using his phone, and communicating with others.
“If my glasses are missing, or somebody takes it from me, it worries me,” he says. “Without it, I really don’t do much.”
Diagnosed with presbyopia in 2009 at the SD Cooper Clinic when he was not earning income while he was studying at university. He had to rely on his sister tos raise the $80 cost. It took her three weeks. Without her help Vaye says he may have had to drop out of university.
Vaye’s current pair, bought three years ago from a street vendor for $US45, was a risky purchase. Glasses for reading do not always need to be prescribed from an eye test unlike those for distance. But as their eyes get worse they will likely need to change them.
“If you buy it from them it will serve you for a certain time, but it will not go for long,” he says. “Sometimes it does not even go for six months and starts getting dull. And you have to go get another one.”
Children Are Most at Risk
Experts say children are among the most affected by the lack of access to vision care. According to Jonathan Kopleh, an optometrist at Liberia Eye Center, five out of ten children aged one to ten suffer from eyesight issues.
“That’s why once a baby comes today, the requirement is they should get tested,” Kopleh says. “Because when a child is growing up and they have such a condition, and that condition is not treated, by the time the child crosses ten, the eye gets lazy.”
Kopleh says many children above the age of 15 now have poor vision because they didn’t get the glasses they needed earlier. Without proper diagnosis and correction, children struggle in school locking them out of long-term opportunities, and their poor performance is often misunderstood by teachers and parents. With help they can thrive like any other kid.
The Boakai administration has recognized the seriousness of the problem and has started taking action, says Molley Goe, Program Director of the National Eye Health Program at the Ministry of Health.
The government has begun offering tax waivers to nonprofit organizations to bring in reading glasses to the country so they can be given to people free of charge. One of those partners is Better World, which is working in the five southeastern counties as well as Bong and Nimba. Goe says the government is also working towards doing the same for those with short sightedness.
He ruled out local production which would cost more than importing but Goe says he is confident, “if we provide subsidies for those who are importing the prices will drop.”
Another major problem is the shortage of trained eye care professionals. There are only three optometrists in Liberia, according to Goe. “There is one at JFK and two in the southeast. But in eye care we have levels, so the ophthalmologist, eye care technicians and opticians all help in identifying and the correction of refractive errors.”
Goe recalls the case of a child in the southeast who was highly myopic and was perceived as completely blind but is now he is doing well as a result of a pair of glasses he received.
OneSight EssilorLuxottica has helped the government set up vision centers in seven of Liberia’s 15 counties, including JFK and ELWA hospitals in Montserrado, Phebe Hospital in Bong, Ganta United Methodist Hospital in Nimba, JD Dosin Hospital in Maryland, Sight First Eye Clinic in Bomi, and Waterfield Primary Health Center in Margibi. It also provides equipment and glasses at minimum cost.
The Liberia Eye Center, once managed by OneSight, is now under JFK’s control. In 2024, the foundation supported 162 outreach programs, screened more than 55,000 people, and distributed 35,000 reading and sunglasses.
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But experts warn with more than a million Liberians likely to need glasses, current efforts are not enough. And there are many other preventable eye diseases including glaucoma and cataracts that are needlessly sending Liberians blind.
“Even the existing centers can’t serve the population,” Kopleh says. “Patients come from counties with no facilities, and by the time they reach JFK, many conditions are irreversible. If eye centers were spread across the country, preventable blindness could be avoided, leaving JFK to handle only the complicated cases.”
“We need more of stakeholders involvemnent,” says Paygar. “The minister herself getting involved to make sure that refractive error is flag out in the national budget. Policy and other things have to be in place because sometimes for us to get things done is a challenge.”
Technology and Rising Demand
As technology advances worldwide, and as more people including Liberians spend longer hours in front of screens, the demand for vision correction is expected to grow. Health experts warn that the rise in digital device use among children and adults could increase rates of eye problems, making access to affordable glasses even more urgent.
“That’s why we ask children to limit screen time,” says Kopleh, “Because the more the child strains the eye, it can worsen refractive errors like myopia. And unfortunately, we are not doing myopic control.”
Paygar says the foundation is exploring options for in-country production of glasses to speed up delivery and lower costs.
“For us, when a person who needs glasses receives it for the first time, it changes their entire life,” he says. “It shouldn’t take long.”
This report is a collaboration with New Narratives as part of the “Investigating Liberia” project. Funding was provided by the Swedish embassy in Liberia which had no say in the story’s content.
