Notice from Ministry of Health

Fellow Ugandans,  Join me today as we commemorate World Sight Day.  As a country, we honour World Sight Day to create awareness on the prevention of blindness. The World Sight Day is commemorated every year on the second Thursday of October with the aim of increasing awareness about good eye health and prevention of blindness. This year, the day will be commemorated under the theme "Eye Care Everywhere" to mark the importance of having sight. 

Globally, more than 253 million people are visually impaired, among them 124 million have low vision while 36 million are blind. Visual impairment due to uncorrected refractive errors affects about 101.2 million people worldwide. More than 90% of the World's visually impaired people live in developing countries of which Uganda is one. Women face a greater risk of Visual Impairment and blindness than men. 

Against this unacceptable prognosis, the World Health Organization (WHO) and International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB) in 1999 launched the joint initiative known as VISION 2020: The Right to Sight aimed at eliminating the main causes of avoidable blindness which are cataracts, diabetic retinopathy, glaucoma and age-related macular degeneration. This initiative was developed to enable collaboration of Governments, Non-Government agencies, Eye care professionals and other organizations involved in prevention of blindness.

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