Dubai, Sep 14: Noor Dubai, the new global blindness eradication programme of United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) have launched the second component to drive out blindness from the country. The campaign is in attempt to bring out the hope of a healthy vision to many more people around the world. In the words of Wondu Alemayehu, Ethiopia country director of ORBIS International, the attempt will reap results if blindness is thrown out completely from the Gulf region.

The UAE Vice-President and Prime Minister) and Ruler of Dubai Sheikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum launched the Noor Dubai campaign Sep 3 to mark the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. The campaign with the association of World Health Organisation (WHO) and International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB) targets the vision of ‘Vision 2020: The Right to Sight’. Noor Dubai, as per its plans will assist in providing health services to one million people suffering from treatable blindness and visual impairment in developing countries around the globe.

The Dubai Health Authority will implement the Noor Dubai agenda in collaboration with two leading international organisations: Lions Club International, the world’s largest volunteer organisation with an international network of 1.3 million members in 202 countries, and ORBIS International, a global development organisation whose mission is to treat and prevent blindness by strengthening the capacity of local eye health partners. Along with imparting of education regarding the blindness and causes of it, the program also include therapy and prevention. The education component was inaugurated at the Al Majlis VIP facility at the Dubai International Airport Sep 11.

Noor Dubai’s educational component wants the health professionals in the UAE and across the world to gather information on the best practices in combating preventable blindness and visual impairment. It believes that educating health professionals is a sustainable and effective method to ensure the prevention of blindness.

In the words of Hunter Cherwek, medical director at ORBIS International, ‘Cyber-Sight is the best way to connect eye doctors around the world with other medical professionals,’ He stresses on the joint program of Noor Dubai and Cyber-Sight to provide an Arabic speaking mentor team in assisting the diagnosis and treatment of patients around the world.’

Noor Dubai, with its efforts is expected to help people suffering from three major eye diseases - cataract, strabismus and corneal opacities that form a major share of eye diseases around the world.

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 21st, 2008 at 10:54 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.