KUWAIT: Kuwait Direct Aid carried out 3,267 eye surgeries during October in Kolda and Dakar in Senegal. It stated in a press release on Wednesday that the society personnel allocated medical facilities specialized in eyes treatment in Chad and various cities in Niger.

They added that the medical facilities were located in African cities with highest rates of blind cases, adding that they were implementing programs to fight blindness in coordination with specialized bodies to examine and treat the eyes and perform necessary surgeries. The society medical teams annually examine thousands of people, transplant hundreds of lenses and distribute thousands of eyeglasses to people in need, it said adding that about 330,500 eye surgeries were performed between 2010 and 2022, benefitting about 1.5 million people.

World Health Organization (WHO) said that Africa has the world's largest cases of untreated near vision impairment at about 80 percent, and it is expected that the population growth will increase the risk of more people developing visual impairment. - KUNA