Horrifyingly, in the next five seconds, one more people in a poor country will go blind. In another minute, a child will join them amongst the world's 39 million totally blind and 246 million visually impaired people. According to World Health Organization (WHO), approximately 18 million people worldwide are blind as a result of cataracts, of these 5% of all cataract disease burden is directly attributable to UV radiation exposure.
In richer nations like Hong Kong and Macau, quality medical knowledge means the chances of becoming sightless are minimal. Tragically, some 90% of sufferers live in developing countries where an almost total lack of medical care means blindness is a life sentence.
With joint effort, blindness population has reduced. But more should be done. To raise the awareness and funds needed to fight this tragedy, WHO designated the second Thursday of every October as World Sight Day (WSD).
Themed "Look Cool．Stay Healthy", this year's Action For Sight 2012 in support of the annual WSD on October 11th, sincerely urges you to protect your eyes by simply avoiding excessive UV radiation exposure in your daily lives.
It was probably the best birthday gift Julissa has ever received. Three years ago, Julissa from El Salvador sustained an injury to her left eye and developed into low vision. With your contribution, Julissa was selected as a cornea transplant recipient and skills-sharing case onboard the ORBIS Flying Eye Hospital, and her eye patch came off on her 13th birthday (Caution: this video includes eye surgery scenes).