Are you aware that every week about 100 Filipino children go blind? These are mostly due to poor nutrition, measles and premature birth which are all preventable if treated in time.
Do you care that more than 450,000 people in the Philippines are blind?
90% of them are poor and 62% of the cases are due to cataracts.
What do you do that a great majority of Filipinos particularly in the rural areas still have no access to eye clinics or ophthalmologists due to the high cost of medicines and very expensive devices?
Optometric Association of the Philippines identified key groups of population that need paramount attention, namely: the concerns of special children (children with mental retardation), vision screening of school children (particularly grade 1 and 2), low vision awareness and sight saving (preservation) campaign.
With Proclamation No. 40 declaring the month of August every year as "Sight Saving Month" we hope to emphasize to our people the importance of protecting and taking good care of our eyes and the need to seek immediate treatment for illnesses that affect it. The celebration is aimed at encouraging the public to be aware about the means of restoring lost eyesight, to increase the awareness of the Filipino people to common eye conditions that may eventually lead to blindness if left untreated.
Early detection and treatment could save a lot of people from losing their sight as well as from disability and poverty.
With the little things that we do we hope it will add up to the Global Elimination of Avoidable Blindness that by 2020 everyone is sighted and no one goes needlessly blind.
Do you care that more than 450,000 people in the Philippines are blind?
90% of them are poor and 62% of the cases are due to cataracts.
What do you do that a great majority of Filipinos particularly in the rural areas still have no access to eye clinics or ophthalmologists due to the high cost of medicines and very expensive devices?
Optometric Association of the Philippines identified key groups of population that need paramount attention, namely: the concerns of special children (children with mental retardation), vision screening of school children (particularly grade 1 and 2), low vision awareness and sight saving (preservation) campaign.
With Proclamation No. 40 declaring the month of August every year as "Sight Saving Month" we hope to emphasize to our people the importance of protecting and taking good care of our eyes and the need to seek immediate treatment for illnesses that affect it. The celebration is aimed at encouraging the public to be aware about the means of restoring lost eyesight, to increase the awareness of the Filipino people to common eye conditions that may eventually lead to blindness if left untreated.
Early detection and treatment could save a lot of people from losing their sight as well as from disability and poverty.
With the little things that we do we hope it will add up to the Global Elimination of Avoidable Blindness that by 2020 everyone is sighted and no one goes needlessly blind.
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