Global rate of blindness declining
justinewangui@gmail.com
Records have indicated a
fall in the global rate of blindness. For
the last 25 years, LIGHT FOR THE WORLD, a European confederation of national
development NGOs has contributed towards combating blindness globally. It has so far led to a 0.13%
decline in the global rate of blindness. The federation works towards
eliminating avoidable blindness as well as supporting disabled people in the
underprivileged regions of the world.
With the help from a couple of
donors for example Bausch + Lomb and CROMA Pharma, LIGHT FOR THE WORLD was able to help more than one million blind and disabled
people in developing countries last year. It also provided
assistive devices and school education to over 50,000 disabled children.
LIGHT FOR THE WORLD is also working towards the elimination of Trachoma, a highly painful and blinding disease which is
one of the seven neglected tropical diseases (NTD) that are set to be
eliminated by the year 2020. The
federation was able to complete the global mapping project of trachoma (which
is funded by the UK government) in suspected common regions in Ethiopia and
Mozambique in 2014. Trachoma will be combated
by the application of a strategy called SAFE (Surgeries, Antibiotics, Facial
cleanliness, and Environmental change (access to clean water)). Trachoma Patients are treated with medication
and eye-lid operations.
As part of the efforts to decline
the rate of global blindness, a new eye clinic set to serve as an eye-care
center for two million people in the province of Sofala, Mozambique was opened in
July 2014. From next year 1,200 eye
surgeries will be carried out annually and thirty eye-care professionals will
be trained every three years.
