Magrabi Foundation
Magrabi Foundation is the leading private foundation in the area of eye care in Egypt. Founded in 1992 by Dr Akef El-Maghraby, Chairman of the Magrabi Medical Group, Magrabi Foundation is a charitable non-governmental organization dedicated to combating needless blindness, and to supporting eye care services for deprived communities in Africa, particularly in Egypt and Sub-Saharan Africa.
The vision of the Magrabi Foundation is a society with equal rights for eye-health for all with no discrimination, and an organization that leads and cares for eye-health integrated in development, on a rights-based approach. The Magrabi Foundation strongly believes that access to education and advocacy play a key role in preventing eye disease, especially among the most marginalized members of our society. High quality and accessible eye care service delivery, for the poor, is an ethical imperative. Through its organized outreach platform, the Magrabi Foundation, offers a localized solution to those individuals, located in the most remote areas of Egypt, traditionally having limited accessibility to overall healthcare services. Fixed vision centers, strategically located in densely populated districts, provide affordable and heavily discounted medical services. Besides rendering direct medical services to communities, the Magrabi Foundation also addresses the shortage of healthcare professionals, through its ongoing commitment to building capacity. Advanced training courses and tailored research projects, in the fields of ophthalmology and visual rehabilitation, are created to educate doctors, surgeons, paramedical staff and nurses, on industry best practices and the latest surgical techniques Egypt’s current population is 90 million people, with approximately 30 percent living beneath the poverty line - more than 50% live under US$ 2.00/day. With such a large marginalized population, trachoma is a major contributor to Egypt’s public health issue. Over the last fifteen years, our team has been dedicated to research and population based studies to understand trachoma statistics throughout the country. The mapping of trachoma is being carried out as part of the Global Trachoma Mapping Project (GTMP). The GTMP is an initiative funded by the British government through DFID and a consortium of INGOs led by SightSavers UK. The GTMP supports mapping of trachoma-suspect districts, with a priority focus on areas where infection is endemic. Mapping will be followed by subsequent implementation of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) SAFE strategy over a period of at least 3-5 years to eradicate this disease. Egypt is committed to eliminating blinding trachoma by the year 2020. The first step, in eliminating this chronic disease, is to complete mapping of all trachoma-suspect districts. The research findings, to date, have been shared with the WHO/EMRO and the Ministry of Health (MOH). Following this, Egypt’s National Health Policy continues to undergo revision and Trachoma has been made a priority health issue for the country.