Treatment for diabetic retinopathy can be expensive, especially in low and middle-income countries such as South Africa, but a recent doctoral study at Stellenbosch University (SU) found that a relatively cheap drug called bevacizumab could be effective.
“We found that injecting bevacizumab into the eyes could help treat diabetic eye disease and prevent blindness in people living in low and middle-income countries,” says Dr Jose Fernando Arevalo, chairperson of the Department of Ophthalmology at the Bayview Medical Center in the Wilmer Eye Institute at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore in America.
Aevalo, who is also the president of the Pan-American Association of Ophthalmology, obtained his doctorate in ophthalmology at the second ceremony of SU’s December graduation.
He says the rapid increase in the prevalence of diabetes means that by 2040 more people will be at risk of developing diabetic eye disease and therefore less ex
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