Original version

BBC World Service West and Central Africa Schedule

BBC World Service West and Central Africa

Witness History

Podcasts

Factual: History

History as told by the people who were there

History as told by the people who were there.

BBC World Service Australasia

BBC World Service schedule for American satellite radio and the Caribbean

BBC World Service Americas and the Caribbean

BBC World Service

BBC World Service East and Southern Africa Schedule

BBC World Service East and Southern Africa

BBC World Service South Asia

BBC World Service News Internet

BBC World Service Online

BBC World Service Europe and the Middle East

BBC World Service East Asia

Witness History: Cuba's blindness epidemic

Documentaries

Cuba's blindness epidemic

05/07/2021 GMT

BBC World Service - Witness History, Cuba's blindness epidemic

Up to 50,000 Cubans were inexplicably struck down with sight loss in the early 1990s

We hear from the American eye specialist who helped solve the mystery of why tens of thousands of Cubans were inexplicably struck down with sight loss in the early 1990s.

As Cuba faced a devastating economic crisis in the early 1990s, leading to severe food shortages and malnutritiion, some 50,000 Cubans were inexplicably struck down with sight loss. But health officials on the communist-led island as well as experts at WHO initially believed it was caused by a viral infection spreading through the population. Despite hostile relations between his country and Cuba, the American eye specialist Dr Alfredo Sadun was asked to go to the island in May 1993 to investigate. He tells Mike Lanchin about his meetings with Fidel Castro, and how he helped solve the mystery of what was termed the Cuban epidemic of optic neuropathy.

Photo: A doctor examines a patient affected by sight loss at a clinic in Havana, Cuba, May 1993 (ADALBERTO ROQUE/AFP via Getty Images)

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Witness History

Cuba's blindness epidemic

Genres

Formats

Brand

BBC World Service West and Central Africa

About BBC World Service