Multi District Conference on Avoidable Blindness
Rotary Club of Panjim and R.I. District 3170 hosted a Multi District Conference on Avoidable Blindness at Hotel Fidalgo, Panaji. District Governor Rtn. Gurudatta Bhakta, District Governor Elect Rtn. Mahesh Raikar, PDG Dr. Rekha Shetty , Bangalore, Global Director, Blindness Prevention, Rotary Action Group, Rtn. Shrinivas Malu, District Chair-Avoidable Blindness, 2009-2010, and others attended. Amit Tapadia and Dinesh Heda attended the event.
The staggering facts about Avoidable Blindness: Despite the efforts of governments and eye care professionals, more people in the world are becoming blind each day. Every 5 seconds one person in our world goes blind … and a child goes blind every minute. According t o the World Health Organization (WHO), an estimated 180 million people worldwide are visually disabled and 40-45 million of them are blind. About 90 percent of the world’s blind live in developing countries. 80% of the world’s blindness is avoidable, preventable or treatable with available interventions. Cataract is responsible for nearly 50% of the world’s blindness. The World Health organization estimates that by the year 2020, the number of blind people in the world will double unless something is done to stop this terrible tragedy. This is high time to initiate Global War against Blindness. Rotary International. , together with the World Health Organization, the One World Sight Project and several other non-governmental eye care organizations has actively embarked on a number of initiatives to eliminate the causes of avoidable blindness, and to provide surgeries for people already blind from cataract, so they might see again.
