(10 Jul 2025)
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso 5 June 2025
1. Various Dr Claudette Yaméogo examines Isaka Diallo’s eye
2. Dr Claudette Yaméogo in the University Hospital Sourou Sanou in Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso
3. SOUNDBITE (French) Dr Claudette Yaméogo, pediatric opthalmologist
“To work with children, you have to have patience. It’s the most important thing because children are hard to examine.”
4. Various Dr Claudette Yaméogo examines Isaka Diallo
5. SOUNDBITE (French) Dr Claudette Yaméogo, pediatric opthalmologist
“We have a population that don’t ask when they have pain, or when things are very bad, there is always the tendency to go for the traditional healer as a first step, and if that doesn’t work they will go see a doctor. So these are the factors that mean that we see kids a bit late.”
6. Various Dr Claudette Yaméogo examines Isaka Diallo
7. SOUNDBITE (French)Dr Claudette Yaméogo, pediatric opthalmologist
“I was trained here since primary school…up to now and this training was in view of providing some relief to the people of Burkina Faso"
8. Various paediatric ophthalmologist discussing with father
9. Isaka Diallo seated
10. SOUNDBITE (Dioula) Isaka Diallo (7 years old): [My name is] “Isaka”. “Some friends threw a stone at me”,
11. Various of screen showing eyesight test with symbols
12. Various of Dr Claudette Yaméogo and Isaka
13. SOUNDBITE (Dioula) Isaka Diallo (7 years old): “I go to school in Soumousso”.
14. Various Isaka Diallo with his father and a neighbor from Soumousso outside the hospital.
15. General views of the entrance of the University Hospital Sourou Sanou in Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso
16. General views of the streets of Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso
STORYLINE:
LEAD IN :
In Burkina Faso, access to eye care is a challenge.
Dr. Claudette Yaméogo is the only ophthalmologist who specializes in treating children.
She is one of just 70 eye doctors for the West African nation’s 23 million people.
STORYLINE:
This is Dr. Claudette Yaméogo at work.
It’s painstaking, and tricky to treat the children here – especially when you are the only ophthalmologist who specializes in such treatment.
Isaka Diallo was playing with friends when a stone struck his left eye.
For two weeks, his parents searched hospitals in western Burkina Faso for an eye doctor. The village clinic only prescribed painkillers. Other health workers did not know what to do.
When they eventually found Dr.Yaméogo it was too late for Isaka. His injury had become too difficult to treat.
It is a common problem in the country of about 23 million people, which has just 70 ophthalmologists.
Yaméogo , who started her practice late last year, says the work is daunting and often requires her to visit — at no cost — families who cannot afford care or cannot make their way to the hospital where she works.
In Burkina Faso, an estimated 70% of the population lives in rural areas.
And yet ophthalmologists are concentrated in the capital, Ouagadougou, and other main cities, making them unreachable for many.
While more than 2,000 ophthalmology procedures were performed in Burkina Faso’s western Hauts-Bassins region in 2024, only 52 of those were carried out in its more rural areas, according to the Ministry of Health.
Most procedures were done in the area of Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso’s second city.
At least 70% of the trauma cases in children treated at the hospital come from rural areas where the risk of exposure — from conflict or from play — is higher, Yaméogo says.
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