The international agency for prevention of blindness has announced two awards for the Kingdom for its efforts to combat blindness. Minister of Health Dr. Hamad Bin Abdullah Al-Mane' will receive the global partnership award and regional achievement award on Monday. The Kingdom bagged the awards in recognition of its role in supporting the program of combating blindness as well as the decisions of the World Health Organization (WHO) in the field of prevention of blindness in addition to the pioneering role played by the health minister in this respect in the last few years. The two awards will be given at the scientific ceremony for inaugurating the eighth general assembly of the international agency for prevention of blindness, scheduled to take place in Argentine. Dr. Al-Mane' highlighted the generous support being extended to the health sector by the Saudi leadership. He praised the role being played by Prince Abdul Aziz Bin Ahmad Bin Abdul Aziz, the head the East Mediterranean region for prevention of blindness in combating blindness. The minister noted that the East Mediterranean was the only region where all of its members have voiced support to the initiative pertaining to Vision-2020. Dr. Al-Mane' said the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has played an important role in presenting the initiative of Vision-2020 to the general assembly of WHO, and subsequently the approval of the initiative in 2003. According to the available statistics, 37 million persons in the world face the problem of blindness, 90 percent of the blind people live in poor countries. The program of Vision-2020 determines the communities where large numbers of people suffer from blindness.
