(MENAFN- The Peninsula) Qatar Red Crescent (QRC) is preparing for a new relief project involving two eye diseases camps in Nouakchott and Boutilimit in Mauritania, with an initial budget of QR400,000 to serve about 10,000 poor patients.
Launched under QRC's Ramadan campaign, the project is in continuation of QRC's sustainable services in the field of eye diseases and prevention of blindness in the poorest African and Asian countries. It will offer services to the vulnerable groups at minimal cost and near their homes.
Over the past 10 years, QRC has conducted eye diseases and blindness prevention campaigns in several countries, serving nearly 900,000 patients and school students.
The latest was a health programme to treat eye diseases among schoolchildren in Dhaka, Bangladesh, with a budget of $174,428 (QR634,813).
It has been launched in partnership with Islamic Call Organisation and Al Basar International Foundation.
During the eight-moth first phase, a medical team visited 60 schools and examined 18,404 students.
Results showed that 2,072 (11.26 percent) needed treatment. Consequently, 1,295 cases received refractive error checks, 261 were referred to hospital, 15 underwent surgeries, 525 received eyeglasses, and health education brochures were distributed to 114 teachers.
The project also involves health education for students, training for teachers to discover vision disorders and the project's technicians, and developing a follow-up and evaluation system.
QRC is committed to working towards the goals of Vision 2020, a global initiative to eliminate avoidable blindness involving 80 percent of the world's visually disabled people.
QRC adopted the commitment during the first GCC forum on avoidable blindness.
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