Every Minute One Child Goes Blind Blindness is one of the Greatest Preventable Health Hazards

Frankfurt, March 14 (idea) ­ Blindness is one of the greatest preventable health hazards. Each second one person goes blind; each minute one child loses his or her eyesight. Roughly 90 per cent of all blind people live in the Two Thirds World.

According to the Christian Blind Mission (CBM) blindness could be prevented or cured by simple means in 70 to 80 per cent of all cases. Some 20 million people, mostly in Africa and Asia, have lost their sight because of cataracts, the most common cause of blindness. A simple operation costing around 30 US-Dollars or Euros in developing countries will give them their sight back.

Trachoma is caused by polluted water and insufficient hygiene. Six million people have gone irrevocably blind as a result of this infection. This illness can be avoided by applying a relatively cheap tetracycline eye ointment.

Blindness in up to 500,000 children is caused by a Vitamin A deficiency. A healthy diet and vitamin additives are sufficient to prevent this disease.

If the number of blind people continues to increase at the present rate, by the year 2020 there will be 77 million men, women and children unable to see the world around them. Together with other agencies, including the World Health Organization (WHO), CBM has started the initiative Vision 2020 to eliminate avoidable blindness. The number of blind people could be reduced to 25 million in the next 17 years.

As the new CBM-director of communications, Martin Georgi, explained to journalists in Frankfurt, it would be sufficient to double the current financial effort in the fight against blindness to 200 million US-Dollars. What was lacking was the political will to put this program into effect.

CBM is one of the biggest agencies for handicapped people. It sponsors more than one thousand projects in 110 countries. The organization was founded in 1908 by the German pastor Ernst Jakob Christoffel (1876-1955). It is a member of the Association if Evangelical Missions in Germany and has branches in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Italy, New Zealand, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States.

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Evangelical news agency idea. Wolfgang Polzer Tel: +49-6441-915102, Fax: +49-6441-915118 e-mail: ­ Internet: http://www.idea.de Postal address: idea, PO Box 1820, 35528 Wetzlar, Germany

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