World Health Organization Thanks CBM for Their Outstanding Work

Toronto, Canada (ots/PRNewswire) - CBM President Professor Allen
Foster met with the Director-General Dr Margaret Chan, for the World
Health Organizations global initiative to eliminate avoidable
blindness "Vision 2020: The Right to Sight" on the eve of World Sight
Day 2007 at WHO Headquarters Geneva.

Dr. Chan thanked CBM for their longstanding 20 year partnership
and support, both financially and with technical personnel, for the
prevention of blindness, deafness and for other disability related
programmes in the developing World.

World Sight Day 2007 will be celebrated on Thursday 11th October
to focus global attention on blindness and vision impairment for
Children.

"Early intervention is key to ensuring that children with eye
problems have the best possible outcomes in the developing
countries," says Prof. Foster. "Almost 50 percent of the world's 1.4
million children living without sight are needlessly blind, from
avoidable causes. This is a major public health priority that needs
to be addressed."

Every minute, a child goes blind - in the developing world, a
child has a 60% chance of dying within one year of going blind. Over
1 million children in the developing world under the age of 15 are
now blind.

CBM is a founding member of VISION 2020: the Right to Sight which
is a global initiative of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the
International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB). We are
working together to eliminate avoidable blindness worldwide by the
year 2020, in order to give everyone in the world the Right to Sight.

CBM currently supports 1,011 disability-focused projects in 112
countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe. CBM has
performed 8 million cataract surgeries worldwide.

CBM is an expert at helping people with disabilities throughout
the developing world.

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