River Blindness

Igor Rudan
5 min readAug 29, 2022

There was a time when many Africans were helped by the western medicine to preserve their sight. But there was lot more to that story than meets the eye.

If you happen to visit the beautiful building of the World Health Organisation in Geneva, you will notice an unusual sculpture in front of it. A boy and an adult man are walking together, the boy in front of the adult. Both are holding on to a wooden stick — the boy at the front, the adult man at the back. Okay, you’ll think — that is quite cute, but what does it symbolize?

Perhaps, the need for people to invest in their children and their education? Or, how at some point the adults need to step aside and let the younger ones go forward? Or, is the message of the sculpture that the world would be a much better place if, instead of adults, it was led by children, with their energy, their enthusiasm, and their kindness?

All of these seem like satisfactory possible explanations of the symbolism of this interesting sculpture. Then, you will quickly forget about the sculpture and enter the building, where old friends would be waiting for you with new hilarious stories from rarely visited, distant countries. You will meet them at the restaurant of the World Health Organisation, where a delicious and very affordable multicultural food is being served.

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Igor Rudan

Director, Centre for Global Health at the University of Edinburgh, UK; President, International Society of Global Health; Editor, Journal of Global Health;