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Optometry industry supports World Sight Day
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Members of the ophthalmic industry have joined to support and recognize World Sight Day, which is officially commemorated on Oct. 10 this year.
The World Sight Day Challenge is a major international fundraising campaign that brings the global optometry community together to help end avoidable blindness and vision impairment, Optometry Giving Sight says on its website. It is coordinated by the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness under the VISION 2020 Global Initiative and supported by eye health organizations around the world, including Optometry Giving Sight.
Johnson & Johnson Vision announced in a press release that it launched the #ConnectedBySight campaign in honor of World Sight Day. The company has pledged to provide 100,000 children with eye health education and treatment access via Lions Clubs International Foundation’s Sight for Kids, to provide 1,000 sight-restoring surgeries to cataract patients through the Himalayan Cataract Project and to donate $1 to Sight for Kids or the Himalayan Cataract Project for each photo uploaded to Donate a Photo.
The #ConnectedBySight campaign was designed for sharing untold stories of eye care professionals, patients and organizations who are inspiring the elevation of eye health as a global priority, according to the release. Johnson & Johnson Vision employees will also participate in local fundraising events and educate local school students by sharing awareness of the global issue of avoidable blindness and visual impairment.
"At Johnson & Johnson Vision, we have a bold ambition to improve the trajectory of eye health," Shlomi Nachman, company group chairman, cardiovascular specialty solutions and Johnson & Johnson Vision, said in the release. "That's something we can't accomplish alone. We have to support organizations driving positive change and connect eye care professionals and the public with education and ways to support making sight accessible to all."
The World Council of Optometry (WCO), which represents more than 200,000 optometrists in more than 80 countries, announced its recognition of World Sight Day in a press release.
“With the impending crisis of significant levels of high myopia on the horizon, WCO is taking an active role in the management and prevention of myopia and other eye diseases,” WCO President Scott Mundle, OD, said in the release. “With the release of the World Health Organization’s World Report on Vision, it is our hope that myopia management, uncorrected refractive error and eye diseases, including cataract, glaucoma and age-related macular degeneration, will have the global attention they deserve.”
The Wyanoke Group, parent company of Healio, publisher of Primary Care Optometry News, is also holding fundraisers to support the World Sight Day Challenge and has been doing so for the last 12 years.