While we were researching the best treatment for Alexander, we were told that the Ponseti Method was being done in Uganda. We had the opportunity to talk to Dr Shafique Pirani, a paediatric orthopaedic surgeon who is from Uganda, but now practices in Vancouver, Canada. He converted from surgery to the Ponseti Method for clubfoot and has made it his goal to bring the Ponseti Method to countries as well as individuals that he comes into contact with.

Dr Pirani and his colleague Dr Norgrove Penny headed a project that brought the Ponseti Method to Uganda in 1999. It was sanctioned and supported by the Ugandan Ministry of Health, assisted financially by Canadian Rotary and other charitably organisations.

At the time of beginning their project it was estimated that there are at least 10,000 people with untreated clubfeet, who are essentially disabled because of their difficulty to walk. Uganda had 7 orthopaedic surgeons in a population that requires at least 300, so there weren't enough to operate on all the clubfoot patients. Dr Ponseti also mentions in his book that South African (and Dr Pirani says also East African) blacks have a rate of clubfoot that is three times the world occurrence rate. So their need for a successful and cost-effective treatment was dire.

They set up a clubfoot treatment program, training many Ugandan medical staff to do the Ponseti method manipulations and casting. A physiotherapist from the Netherlands who was also involved in the project, was so excited about the results they were getting that he designed a variation on the FAB bar and shoes that could be manufactured locally at a lower cost than importing the bar from the US.

From a Rotary document about the project:

"The Clubfoot Project's goal is to ensure that by the end of its four year term, children in Uganda with clubfoot deformities will be identified at birth and have access to corrective treatment in those parts of Uganda where such treatment is currently unavailable.

The estimated cost of the Clubfoot Project is US $145,000.

The Clubfoot Project has been conceived by Drs. Pirani and Penny and has been partnered by The Uganda Society for Disabled Children, Kampala, Uganda; The Uganda Society for Disabled Children, United Kingdom; The Uganda Ministry of Health; Children's Orthopaedic Rehabilitation Project, Kampala, Uganda; Christian Blind Mission, Germany; the Rotary Club of Burnaby, Canada and Mossadiq Umedaly."

The project has been a resounding success. Dr Chris Lavy, based in Malawi heard about their success and traveled to Uganda to see their facility. He has since built a similar clubfoot clinic based in Malawi treating patients with the Ponseti Method.

Dr Pirani and other Ponseti method doctors continue to travel and give Ponseti training workshops in South America, India and Africa.