The Foundation’s Continuity programme has now repaired, recharged or replaced devices for 10,212 people with SEIRAN 2 implants, about a quarter of the roughly 41,000 people fitted with one between 2008 and 2019.
Kiroshi Opticals stopped selling the SEIRAN 2 in 2019 and ended support in March 2024. Since then, Continuity’s repair partners in Japan, the United States, Canada and the Philippines have been the only source of service for most wearers. The commonest repair is a battery replacement, a short procedure under local anaesthetic; in FY2025 the programme replaced 9,880 batteries across all the devices it supports.
“Ten thousand is a number we are proud of and a number that worries us,” said Yusuf Oduya, who leads Continuity and wears a discontinued implant himself. “It means thirty thousand people we have not yet reached, and a device that gets older every day.” One connector used in the SEIRAN 2 is no longer made by anyone. Continuity has commissioned an open design for a replacement, which it expects to publish in the first half of 2027.
Wearers of any discontinued implant can reach Continuity at continuity@kiroshi.org or through any of the fourteen aftercare clinics.