Transylvania has more to offer than just Count Vlad’s castle. Fighting Blindness, in partnership with Diabetes Ireland, is organising a fundraising trek in Transylvania, which will take place in May 2010. It promises participants that they will enjoy breathtaking views of the Bucegi Mountains and get to stroll around Bucharest, the charming, historic capital of Romania.

Moderate fitness
The trek will cover 70km in five days and, as it won’t be strenuous, participants will only need a moderate level of fitness. “Some of the treks we do are quite challenging,” said Michael Griffith, the chairman of Fighting Blindness. “We do one to Everest Base Camp, for example, and you would definitely need to be fit for that. This one will be a lot easier.”

Fighting Blindness aims to find treatments and cures for retinal degenerative conditions, which affect about 65,000 Irish adults and children, and 40 million people globally. Some of these conditions include Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP), which begins with night blindness and loss of peripheral vision, and Age-Related Macular Degeneration (AMD), which starts with a blurring of central vision.

Genetics
Griffith suffers from RP. “It is a genetic condition,” he says. “My father had it, my brother has it, some aunts and uncles had it. As my father was getting older and his eyesight was failing, I felt sorry for him and thought he could do with a bit of encouragement, so we started to get an organisation together. We found people in Ireland who were involved with the British Retinitis Pigmentosa Society and started our own society.”

That was 26 years ago. Since then, Fighting Blindness has had some remarkable achievements. “We very quickly had some big successes,” he says. “A group set up in Trinity College Dublin in the 1980s was the first in the world to find a gene for RP, so that was a big step internationally and gave us a big boost.”

Research
In large part due to the work of Fighting Blindness, Ireland is now regarded as a centre of excellence in the area of visual research. Every year, the charity funds €1 million of research into gene and stem cell therapies, retinal implantation technology, new drug studies and more. It recently established the Fighting Blindness Vision Research Institute (FBVRI) at Dublin City University, making it the first Irish charity to fund its own medical research institute.

“We are a patients’ organisation,” says Griffith. “We are people who decided to take the initiative ourselves and not wait around for someone else to solve the problem. We said we would find treatments for these conditions and we will, but we need help.”

Financial pressures
“Unfortunately, the current economic climate is putting pressure on us, the same as everyone else,” he adds. “We are not sure how much longer we can sustain that level of funding. This trek is one of the big ways we have of raising money, so we would be delighted to hear from anyone who would consider going on the trek, maybe as part of an annual holiday or as a short trip away.”

Over-55s at risk
Fighting Blindness is currently running a nationwide Eye Healthcare Campaign that is focusing on the over-55s as they are the most at-risk group for AMD.

“AMD is very common,” Griffith says. “One in 10 people over the age of 50 in Ireland are affected by it. In about 10 per cent of those cases, there is a very rapid degeneration of the condition. It is horrific for someone over the age of 50 to lose their sight within three months. I met a man recently who told me that, within three months, he had lost his sight, his job and his will to live.”

Regular check-ups
“We want to raise awareness of AMD and tell everyone over the age of 50 they should go for an eye check-up every two years at the outside to make sure any signs of degeneration are caught in time. We don’t want people unnecessarily losing their sight. There is a lot that can be done these days. The medical treatments are still not as good as we would like, but they can slow down the degeneration.”

The Fighting Blindness AGM takes place from 1pm to 3.30pm on October 3rd in the Westbury Hotel, Dublin. All are welcome to attend.

The registration fee for the Transylvania Trek is €300 and each participant is asked to raise €3,500 to pay for the trip and to put money towards research into blindness.