An eight-month cycling expedition by a pair of St Andrews University students aims to fight preventable blindness and deafness.
Biology and geography student Alex McMaster and medicine graduate Merlin Hetherington will cycle 10,000km from Cairo to Cape Town to distribute 2,000 Arclight devices — revolutionary handheld solar-powered tools that can make instant diagnostic decisions.
Developed by the university’s School of Medicine, the Arclight is a low-cost, solar-powered ophthalmoscope-otoscope for outreach or screening programmes in low-income countries.
Merlin and Alex, who leave for Cairo on Wednesday, said: “We are looking forward to witnessing first hand some of the struggles and positive stories from people striving for quality eye-care in their communities.
“It is a tragedy that we have been able to end preventable blindness for decades, yet health workers in Africa don’t have access to the tools to even diagnose or screen the causes of blindness.”
During the expedition, Merlin and Alex will provide training for people to drive forward their own distribution and education initiatives.
The expedition has also been supported by record-breaking long distance cyclist Mark Beaumont, who worked with Merlin and Alex to prepare.
People can follow Merlin and Alex’s progress from their website which will provide real-time updates of the expedition at www.arclight-tandemafrica.com.
