Press Release No.
23
10 December 2003
Vision
2020 Regional Planning Workshop and Launching of Vision 2020 in
Egypt
Cairo, Egypt, 14–17 December 2003
In
the Eastern Mediterranean Region, an estimated 6 million people are blind
and over 22 million people suffer from visual impairment. Worldwide,
the figures jump to an estimated 50 million blind people and around 180
million visually-impaired. Ironically, two-thirds of these conditions are
either preventable or curable. Unless active steps are taken now and
adequate resources are provided, the number of blind people will double
within the next 25 years.
In
this context, the Regional Office is organizing a regional planning
workshop on preventable blindness in order to achieve the following:
-
Enhance and strengthen the present prevention of blindness activities in the Region.
-
Develop recommendations and plans of action for the reduction of avoidable blindness in this Region under Vision 2020.
-
Launch Vision 2020 in Egypt
His Royal Highness
Prince Abdul Aziz Bin Ahmed Bin Abdul Aziz, Regional Chairman of the
International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness and Chairman of the
Board of IMPACT-EMR, and His Excellency Professor Mohammed Awad Tag
El-Din, Minister of Health and Population of Egypt, will join Dr Hussein
A. Gezairy, WHO Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean in
inaugurating the meeting.
In the Eastern
Mediterranean Region, cataract, complications of trachoma, corneal
opacity, uncorrected refractive error, low vision, glaucoma, childhood
blindness and diabetic retinopathy are the major causes of blindness.
Cataract remains the primary cause of blindness (approximately 60%) in
almost all the countries in the Region. Approximately 20 million people in
the Region are in need of low vision care.
To reduce the blind population in the world, in 1999, WHO, in
partnership with the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness
and other nongovernmental organizations, launched Vision 2020¾The
Right to Sight. The goal of this initiative was to address the major
preventable or treatable causes of blindness, particularly in the
developing countries, in order to stop a further increase in the global
burden of blindness. Vision 2020 aimed at intensifying and accelerating
the current prevention of blindness activities, through disease prevention
and control, training of personnel, strengthening of the
existing eye care infrastructure, use of appropriate technology and
mobilization of resources, so as to achieve the goal of eliminating
avoidable blindness by 2020. Since 1999, Vision 2020 has been launched in
10 Member States in the Region, namely Bahrain, Egypt, Lebanon, Pakistan,
Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Sudan, United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Yemen.
A number of Member States are taking
considerable steps for the elimination of preventable blindness. Saudi
Arabia, Oman, Morocco and Pakistan are working actively towards the
elimination of blinding trachoma which continues to be another global and
regional cause of preventable blindness. Elimination of blinding trachoma
is a priority in the Eastern Mediterranean Region under the WHO campaign
for the Global Elimination of Trachoma (GET2020).
Childhood blindness is another priority. Five countries in the Region, namely Egypt, Islamic Republic of Iran, Morocco, Sudan and Pakistan, will receive support from the Lions Clubs International Foundation over the next five years to address childhood blindness in their countries. Refractive error, which can easily be corrected by a pair of spectacles, is another simple and easily preventable cause of blindness. “Most of these conditions are responsive to simple treatment, yet very few have access to that treatment”, says Dr Hussein Gezairy.
