Bill Harvey: The Ninth Wave

Like a well-funded local bus service (remember them), after the calm of the summer months, two major eye health stories appeared last weekend.

The first was on the back of a study from John Dart’s team at Moorfields published in this month’s BJO. Rather alarmingly, the paper highlighted the steady and significant rise in reported cases of Acanthamoeba keratitis among contact lens wearers. The painful and sight-threatening condition was unheard of before the rise of soft lens wear and was initially a very rare occurrence. There were just eight reported cases at the hospital in 2000 and 10 in 2003. This had risen to 35 by 2011 and the figures from 2016 revealed 65 confirmed cases.