Fred Hollows celebrates drop in blindness

The Fred Hollows Foundation NZ celebrates dramatic decrease in blindness

World Sight Day 2010 has taken on special meaning as The Fred Hollows Foundation NZ celebrates new figures that show the number of blind people in the world has dropped dramatically through health-care initiatives, especially in the developing world.

This has seen the number of blind people globally reduce to 39.9 million compared to 45 million in 2004. This is contrary to projections of the time that estimated that 20 million more people would be afflicted by blindness.

“This is a fantastic result and an endorsement of all that Fred Hollows strived for,” said Brent Impey, executive director of the Fred Hollows Foundation NZ.

“Behind these statistics are dramatic improvements in the lives of many individuals who have had their sight restored or saved and livelihoods restored because of co-coordinated initiatives undertaken by the Fred Hollows Foundation and similar organizations globally. The emphasis on cataract surgery, which is the leading cause of avoidable blindness, is clearly working, “ says Impey. “The simple message is that the solutions are cost-effective and they work.”

“Altogether the figures are very encouraging as they show we have managed to save more than 20 million people from blindness. This is what Fred Hollows set out to achieve and that it is happening is a wonderful realization of his dream,” says Impey.

The preliminary estimates were released by the World Health Organization (WHO) on the eve of International World Sight Day (October 14 2010) at a special meeting at its Geneva headquarters to review the VISION 2020 campaign. This is a global initiative between WHO and the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (an international group of organizations working in vision care) to eliminate the causes of avoidable blindness by the year 2020.

The Fred Hollows Foundation works worldwide and has contributed to the fight against avoidable blindness by restoring sight in 18 countries. The Fred Hollows Foundation NZ focuses its work in the Pacific region, including Papua New Guinea and Timor-Leste.

ENDS

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