The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : Plan to rid children of blindness

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Friday, Nov 21, 2008
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Plan to rid children of blindness

Special Correspondent

LVPEI partners with Nimmagadda Foundation

— PHOTO: P.V. SIVAKUMAR

Meeting of minds: Chairman of LV Prasad Eye Institute G. N. Rao with cricketer V.V.S. Laxman, tennis player Sania Mirza, N. Prasad of Nimagadda Foundation and chairman of Care Hospitals B. Somaraju at the Nimagadda Foundation.

HYDERABAD: In a move to eradicate the incidence of blindness among children, the L.V. Prasad Eye Institute has partnered with Nimmagadda Foundation to eliminate “needless blindness” among children in the State by the year 2020.

The initiative is aimed at setting up infrastructure to screen all children, providing primary to tertiary treatment as the case may be and ensure early intervention to prevent ‘avoidable’ blindness. Nimmagadda Foundation will provide Rs. 15 crore for the initiative christened ‘Nimmagadda Prasad – LVPEI Children’s Eye Health Initiative’.

As part of it, the foundation would support all non-paying children’s screening, treatment and surgeries performed at the LVPEI centres in Hyderabad and Visakhapatnam besides 50-odd rural centres spread across the State. According to LVPEI founder Gullapalli N. Rao, there were about 50,000 blind children in the State, while those with lower vision were three times more at about 1.5 lakh.

The new initiative, to be operational till 2020, would help screen children irrespective of their socio-economic status and the LVPEI would utilise its existing network in seven districts as well as centres set up in different parts in association with other organisations.

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