Restoring Sight to More Than 5,000 Cataract Patients
Zawya
3/3/2009
Noor Dubai continues South Asia outreach, restoring sight to more than 5,000 cataract patients in Pakistan, Bangladesh.
Noor Dubai, the UAE-based charity initiative focused on preventing and treating low vision and curable forms of blindness, today announced that it has successfully treated more than 5,000 people through free cataract treatment camps held in the last fortnight in the Pakistani city of Shah Sanad.
The Noor Dubai team also completed more than 150 successful phacoemulsification surgeries in Bangladesh, a record achievement for the charity initiative. The highly specialized and advanced cataract procedure requires surgeons to make small incisions in the cornea and insert an ultrasonic probe to break up the cataract and suction it out in pieces. The procedure allows for faster recovery time, more rapid vision restoration and less discomfort for patients.
His Excellency Qadhi Saeed Al Murooshid, CEO of Noor Dubai and Director General of the Dubai Health Authority, said: “Noor Dubai’s surgical team continues to strive to provide the best possible eye care services to our brothers and sisters in the developing world. Our treatment camps in South Asia and Africa have received an overwhelming response from patients, which inspires us to keep going.”
In Pakistan, Noor Dubai treated more than 1,750 men, women and children with medication and prescription eyeglasses funded by the initiative. An additional 1,000 patients required surgical treatment, with priority given to those with cataracts in both eyes and those in advanced stages of the disease.
The Noor Dubai surgical team completed an average of 300 surgeries daily in Pakistan and Bangladesh.
Noor Dubai, launched by UAE Vice President and Ruler of Dubai HH Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum in September 2008, has set a target of treating more than one million patients in its first year, via free treatment camps in Dubai, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Sudan and Yemen and other areas in the world.
The initiative is also working towards establishing an eye camp in Gaza to treat children and adults with preventable blindness and visual impairment, and those whose vision was affected during the recent conflict.
In the coming weeks, the initiative will also move more into its second and third phases, focusing on prevention, education and awareness.
Editor’s Notes:
Noor Dubai, the latest global charitable initiative from the government of Dubai and the UAE, was launched by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, on September 3, 2008, with the aim of delivering preventative eye care to more than one million people around the world. The initiative’s vision is for a world free from curable forms of blindness and impaired vision.
For more information, please contact:
Nizar Aridi
ASDA’A Burson Marsteller
Tel: (+971 4) 334 4550;
Fax: (+971 4) 334 4556
E-mail: n.aridi@asdaa.com
