DUBAI: Noor Dubai Foundation, the Dubai Based NGO focused on preventing and treating low vision and curable forms of blindness, has successfully completed a treatment mobile eye camp in Ghana.

According to the latest statistics from the Ghana Eye Foundation, it is estimated that of the 20 million people living in Ghana, 200,000 are blind and over 600,000 people are visually impaired.

The camp opened last week and lasted for 6 days in the state of Tamale, capital city of the Northern region of Ghana.

Thousands of individuals were screened and over 300 were operated.  

Qadhi Saeed AlMurooshid, chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Noor Dubai foundation and director-general of the Dubai Health Authority (DHA), said:  “This is the second mobile eye camp that Noor Dubai conducted in Africa and the third for the year 2011 and we are delighted with the results.

The camp in Ghana witnessed overwhelming response from patients of all ages, many of whom travelled long distances for this opportunity.”

“The commitment and hard work of the Noor Dubai team who suffered a great deal of hardship and drove over 10 hours, crossing borders to reach some of the most remote areas in Africa, in regions where the  world’s poorest populations reside,” he added.

Dr Manal Taryam, CEO of the Noor Dubai Foundation, said: “About 600,000 people in Ghana are visually impaired and over 75 per cent of the causes of blindness are avoidable.”

“The leading cause of blindness in Ghana is Cataract, affecting nearly 100,000 individuals. Other major causes of blindness included Glaucoma and Trachoma.  With Glaucoma, unfortunately most of the cases that arrived to the camp for intervention were of late stages,” she added.