UAE | Health
Dubai charity contributes to sight restoration
Funds research into gene therapy for disease that causes blindness in children.
- By Alice Johnson, Staff Reporter
- Published: 20:48 May 2, 2008
Dubai: Foresight has helped find a breakthrough treatment for a form of blindness.
The Dubai-based eye disease and blindness research charity contributed funds to research into gene therapy treatment.
Two research groups, one from Moorfields Eye Hospital and one from Philadelphia University have been working on gene therapy to treat Leber's congenital amaurosis - a hereditary disease that causes small children to go blind. The treatment involves injecting genes into the affected eye.
Steven Howarth, an 18-year-old with failing sight from the condition, has had vision improved through the treatment in London, England, according to a BBC report.
Katy Newitt, chairperson of Foresight in Dubai, said: "Together we have helped make history, but more importantly, brought the prospect of a cure for hereditary eye disease a step nearer. Please help us to keep on fighting blindness so there is a brighter future for people who are losing their sight from hereditary eye disease."
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