A major new Fred Hollows Foundation Childhood Blindness program for Vietnam has been launched in Hanoi by the Deputy Prime Minister, Nguyen Thien Nhan.

The Vietnam Childhood Blindness Prevention Project, funded by Standard Chartered Bank, will run over three years and target children (aged up to 15) in 20 districts of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.

Launching the project at the Hanoi Eye Hospital, the Deputy Prime Minister said that for everyone, their eyes are of very special importance – with 80% of the information people receive being  through vision.

To be run in conjunction with the Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City Eye Hospitals, the project will:

• Train 3,029 eye health workers to improve the treatment and identification of  childhood vision problems.
• Screen 801,000 primary and secondary students in  552 schools.
• Provide over 20,000 eye operations and treatments.
• Run community education campaigns on vision problems amongst young people.

The Fred Hollows Foundation Country Manager for Vietnam, Dr Huynh Tan Phuc, said the project would help eliminate avoidable blindness in Vietnam by 2020.

“It builds on the proud record of The Foundation in Vietnam since Professor Fred Hollows first came to this country in 1992, at the invitation of one of our great ophthalmologists Professor Nhan,’’ Dr Phuc said.

Recent studies have shown that between 10 and 20 percent of school children in Vietnam have some form of refractive error – and for many this goes uncorrected. And the demand for surgery is growing with over 6,000 child eye operations performed at Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh eye hospitals in 2008. Approximately 23,000 children in Vietnam are bilaterally blind.

The project will allow paediatric ophthalmology services in Vietnam to expand into district hospitals, schools and the wider community.

The World Health Organization estimates that up to 60% of children in developing countries die within a year of becoming blind, so the project is giving back hope to the children of Vietnam.

Our thanks go out to those who have supported this project including the Government of Vietnam, Standard Chartered Bank, the Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City district people’s committees,  and the Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh eye hospitals.