More than 30,000 people have registered to donate their corneas after death to support a cornea donation campaign which has been launched in 10 cities and provinces throughout the country.
Mr. Nguyen Huu Hoang, deputy director of the Bank of Eyes of the Hanoi-based National Eye Hospital, said this Monday.
Activities related to vision care, promotion of eye health, prevention of eye diseases have been promoted strongly with a support of organization Orbis International in Vietnam.
Since 2004, Orbis International has become the biggest cornea supplier to Vietnam with some 100 corneas each year.
According to Mr. Hoang, Vietnam now has over 300,000 blind people who are awaiting cornea transplantation operations but availability is still limited.
A meeting was held at the Ho Chi Minh City Eye Hospital on November 1 to launch a project of blind prevention in children in the city from now until the next December.
A total capital of the project is VND3.8 billion (US$190,000). Of which the Australia’s Fred Hollos Foundation will finance VND3.2 billion (US$160,000).
Under the project, standard eye care centers will be built in districts to give eye check-up to students and people, and raise the community’s awareness of refraction.
The Institute of Education Sciences’ statistics shows that the rate of refraction among primary school pupils is 18.67 percent, secondary school students is 23.4 percent and high school students is 32.68 percent.
The number of students with eye diseases in urban areas is larger than pupils in rural areas.
