HOYA Vision Care has renewed its partnership with Orbis International, a not-for-profit organisation, to help provide vision screening for half a million children in India.
The new three-year agreement will focus on helping school children get access to eyecare in low- to middle-income countries and on training eyecare professionals around the world through Cybersight, Orbis’s award-winning telemedicine and e-learning platform.
HOYA Vision Care’s support will bolster Orbis’s work to provide eye screenings for children across India. During the COVID-19 pandemic, HOYA provided critical funding to help the Orbis India team transition to door-to-door screenings when school-based screenings could not take place.
Over the next three years, HOYA’s contribution will enable Orbis to screen more than 500,000 children and provide more than 15,000 eyeglasses as part of the REACH (Refractive Error Among Children) program in India.
REACH aims to reduce visual impairment due to uncorrected refractive error among school-aged children and provide a sustainable and scalable solution to a shortage of care for this issue.
Orbis develops teams of ophthalmic personnel and supports them with digital and clinical equipment to perform screenings and provide spectacles. The teams also provide referrals for children who require further examination and treatment to an Orbis partner hospital or to the nearest Vision Centre. Orbis also operates the world’s only Flying Eye Hospital, a fully accredited ophthalmic teaching hospital on board an MD-10 aircraft.
Dr Rishi Raj Borah, country director, Orbis India, said its partnership with HOYA Vision Care has been instrumental in bringing eye health services within children’s reach and enabling them to realise their potential.
“We are excited to continue this partnership to further expand our outreach and impact, and touch many more lives over the next few years. A simple pair of spectacles is often all it takes to open a world of opportunities to someone,” he said.
India is home to the largest number of blind children in any one country and to 9.3 million children with visual impairment. Considering the majority of vision impairment cases is completely avoidable, the REACH program is instrumental in helping children see, and has great potential outside of India, too.
Mr Alexandre Montague, CEO, HOYA Vision Care said the partnership takes the company another step in the direction of closing the vision health gap, enabling everyone to experience the gift of sight.
“Improving vision over a lifetime, that is our mission at HOYA Vision Care. And for that reason, we are excited to partner with Orbis, in India and beyond,” he said.
HOYA Vision Care will also work with Orbis to support Vision Centres in India, which make eyecare accessible in rural communities. Vision Centres are eye health clinics that are strategically located in communities that do not have easy access to other eye health facilities. Vision Centres offer affordably priced care for low-income individuals, and free care for those who cannot pay. HOYA’s support will directly impact four Vision Centres and the three partner hospitals associated with them. HOYA also plans to support further expansion of Vision Centres in the future.
Its partnership will also benefit Cybersight, Orbis’s award-winning telemedicine and e-learning platform. Cybersight gives eyecare professionals in areas with the greatest need free virtual access to training, knowledge and other resources to better help their patients.
HOYA’s contribution to Cybersight will focus on myopia and help to reach thousands of eye health professionals in areas with a high prevalence of myopia, such as China and parts of Southeast Asia, with the skills they need to provide quality care to their patients.
HOYA Vision Care has partnered with Orbis since 2021 and was a key player in the REACH team’s ability to pivot to a new and innovative door-to-door screening model when schools were closed during the COVID-19 pandemic.
They are continuing to work together to expand their collaboration across many other geographies to ensure everyone, everywhere has access to quality eyecare.
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