{"id":20926,"date":"2025-01-28T06:59:17","date_gmt":"2025-01-28T07:59:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=20926"},"modified":"2025-01-28T08:27:42","modified_gmt":"2025-01-28T08:27:42","slug":"for-children-in-rural-mozambique-the-future-comes-into-focus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=20926","title":{"rendered":"For Children in Rural Mozambique, the Future Comes Into Focus"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Over the past year, Muanema Fakira noticed something odd about the eyes of her 1-year-old daughter Sumaya. Her left eye was cloudy. It did not gleam with curiosity or glint in the sun. When the problem persisted, Ms. Fakira made the rounds to health clinics in their town in central Mozambique. Doctors said they could not help.<\/p>\n

But they knew of someone who could, if Ms. Fakira could take Sumaya, now 2, on a 100-mile journey to the coast.<\/p>\n

The family made the trip to the city of Quelimane, where Dr. Isaac Vasco da Gama examined Sumaya\u2019s eyes and quickly diagnosed a congenital cataract.<\/p>\n

Ms. Fakira was skeptical \u2014 cataracts are for old people, she said. But Dr. da Gama explained that an infection at birth, or shortly after, can cause cataracts in children. The condition is particularly worrying because vision problems affect the development of a child\u2019s physical function. But the good news, he said, was that the problem can be solved with a simple surgery, one he does a dozen times a week at Quelimane Central Hospital.<\/p>\n

This was particularly lucky for Sumaya because Dr. da Gama is one of just three pediatric ophthalmologists in Mozambique, a country of 30 million people.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Dr. Isaac Vasco da Gama checking on 3-year-old Edilson, who was recovering from a retinoblastoma removed from his right eye at Quelimane Central Hospital.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Over the past year, Muanema Fakira noticed something odd about the eyes of her 1-year-old daughter Sumaya. Her left eye was cloudy. It did not gleam with curiosity or glint in the sun. When the problem persisted, Ms. Fakira made the rounds to health clinics in their town in central Mozambique. Doctors said they could not help.But they knew of someone who could, if Ms. Fakira could take Sumaya, now 2, on a 100-mile journey to the coast.The family made the trip to the city of Quelimane, where Dr. Isaac Vasco da Gama examined Sumaya\u2019s eyes and quickly diagnosed a congenital cataract.Ms. Fakira was skeptical \u2014 cataracts are for old people, she said. But Dr. da Gama explained that an infection at birth, or shortly after, can cause cataracts in children. The condition is particularly worrying because vision problems affect the development of a child\u2019s physical function. But the good news, he said, was that the problem can be solved with a simple surgery, one he does a dozen times a week at Quelimane Central Hospital.This was particularly lucky for Sumaya because Dr. da Gama is one of just three pediatric ophthalmologists in Mozambique, a country of 30 million people.Dr. Isaac Vasco da Gama checking on 3-year-old Edilson, who was recovering from a retinoblastoma removed from his right eye at Quelimane Central Hospital.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20928,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20926"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20926\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20929,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20926\/revisions\/20929"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}