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In conversation with Lucy Carter

Sound Seekers is a UK based charity, seeking to help deaf people, particularly children, in the poorest communities in the world. The aim is to work in partnership with local organisations and institutions to ensure we deliver sustainable and cost-effective...

Preventing avoidable deafness and death from ear disease in Ethiopia

In the July/August edition of the magazine, we featured an article on humanitarian work in Ethiopia, focusing on head and neck surgery. Continuing this theme, Misha Verkerk tells us about an international collaboration providing otology care and training in that...

What happens to donated hearing aids?

According to the WHO, only 3% of people in developing countries who require hearing aids have one. Over the years many people, organisations and companies have donated old hearing aids to charities. Bhavisha Parmar, an audiologist who volunteered with Sound...

Breaking barriers in Uganda: the story of Elaine Mukaaya

More than 9% of sub-Saharan Africa’s one billion people live with disabling hearing loss, with children having among the highest rates of childhood hearing loss in the world [1]. Sadly, in concordance with the inverse care law – proposed by...

Prof ED Kitcher

Much has been said of the paucity of ENT Services in Africa [1]. Whilst Ghana has always been at the forefront of healthcare in Sub Saharan Africa, its ENT and allied services were somewhat suboptimal in the 1980s. This article,...

Cambodian Children Surgical Centre: a junior’s perspective

The Children’s Surgical Centre (CSC) is a Non-Governmental-Organisation (NGO) hospital situated in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. CSC was developed for landmine victims over 20 years ago by Dr Jim Gollogly after the dark period under the Pol Pot...

Charitable hearing care in Pakistan: establishing the IMRA Cochlear Implant Programme and Middle Ear Project

IMRA, the International Medical Relief Agency, is a registered charity providing volunteer-delivered cochlear implant and major ear surgery to children and adults in Pakistan. Established in 2001 by UK-based ENT surgeons led by Mr Haroon Khan, its primary aim is...

#BecauseIhearIlive – an international message from Smiling Crocodile

There are 34 million children worldwide afflicted by disabling hearing loss, 60% of whom are suffering from hearing loss due to preventable causes [1]. This article is an account of the Smiling Crocodile Charity, founded in 2009 by Dagmar Herrmannová,...

Cochlear implantation in Tanzania: the journey and the outcomes

It is estimated that over 400 million people worldwide live with disabling hearing loss, 39.9 million of whom live in sub-Saharan Africa [1]. This article by Dr Aveline Kahinga and Mr Ali Jaffer demonstrates the effort that has been made...

Public Health Planning for Hearing Impairment (2022)

The World Report on Hearing, published in 2021 by the WHO reports that 430 million people in the world have moderate or worse hearing loss, all of whom require rehabilitation [1]. Over 1.5 billion have any degree of hearing loss....

Prof Tanon of the Côte d’Ivoire and Stephanie Unterrieder of MED-EL: challenges and successes of a public-private partnership

The Côte d’Ivoire (RCI) is a large country on the West African coast. It has recently launched a pioneering neonatal hearing screening programme. Dr Cheka Spencer caught up with Prof Marie-Josée Tanon to discuss this and other recent developments which...

Cochlear implant care for deaf children in Côte d’Ivoire

Deafness is a global public health problem. More than 1.5 billion people (nearly 20% of the global population) live with hearing loss, and 430 million of them have disabling hearing loss, including 34 million children. In sub-Saharan Africa, nearly eight...