Johnson & Johnson Vision Care (JJVC) informed that more than six million children in India have received free vision screening through Sight for Kids, a partnership programme with the Lions Clubs International Foundation (LCIF) now marking its 10th anniversary. The announcement was made on the occasion of World Sight Day, celebrated each year on October 11.
Overall, the programme has screened 16 million children across India, China, Korea, Malaysia, Nepal, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam. It was established in 2002 to reduce visual impairment and disability in Asia through volunteer-directed vision screenings involving ministries of health, school districts, eye care professionals and hospitals along with Lions Clubs International volunteers and JJVC employees.
In India, the main areas of focus for screening children have been in Mumbai, Kolkata, Hyderabad and Cochin. Across Mumbai, Sight for Kids has reached out to 1,566 schools and screened 382,909 children ages 5-15.
Sight For Kids has provided a total of 59,000 pairs of glasses to children across India as well as taken care of treatment of 200,000 kids who were referred to eye specialists of which 42,000 were treated for eye conditions.
Sunil Kumar, Director, The International Association of Lions Clubs, from Secunderabad said, “It is hard to believe that 12.8 million children are visually impaired in South-East Asia among the 153 million worldwide. To prevent irreversible blindness is to catch them young. There can’t be a better gift to children than the “Gift of Sight” for them to see the beauty of colors. Thanks to the incredible success of the Sight For Kids programme from LCIF and Johnson & Johnson Vision Care, 16 million kids in Asia are now safe with more to go.”
“We are proud to support an initiative that continues to identify Indian children with vision-related issues and refers them for remedial care,” said Vivek Bhatnagar, General Manager of Johnson & Johnson Vision Care, India. “A simple act of a vision screening that takes minutes can create a lifelong change.”
Sight for Kids is a long running vision-screening programme that continue to operate as a public-private initiative across multiple countries, including developing countries.
EH News Bureau
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