Event

The UWI Optometry programme, the Faculties of Science and Agriculture and Medical Sciences, collaborate with the Trinidad and Tobago Optometrists Association (TTOA) and the Caribbean Optometrists Association (CARIOA), to commemorate World Sight Day on Thursday 14th October, 2010. The day's celebrations begin with an exposition and vision screening, from noon-3 pm, at the Humanities Undercroft, followed by a lecture themed Countdown to 2020, The Public Health Importance of Eye and Vision Care, at 4 pm, at the LRC, Auditorium B.

About World Sight Day

Around the world, 670 million people are blind or vision-impaired simply because they do not have access to an eye examination and a pair of glasses. Why not? Because in a number of countries there are not enough trained eye care personnel and there is no infrastructure to support these desperately needed eye care services. 

The link between blindness and poverty is clear: 75% of the world's blindness is avoidable - either treatable or preventable - and 90% of avoidable blindness occurs in the developing world. People in developing countries are ten times more likely to be blind or visually impaired than those in the developed world.  

The World Health Organization (WHO) recognizes that blindness prevention and vision correction rank with immunizations among the most cost effective and efficient of all health interventions. In May 2006, the World Health Assembly, the governing body of the WHO, passed a resolution giving priority to prevention of blindness and visual impairment. This is the first time the WHO has made prevention of blindness a global priority, encouraging governments to take action and commit resources to the many simple and cost-effective interventions that can save sight and give a better quality of life to millions.