Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region has launched the second phase of a project to help restore sight to patients with cataracts.

Xinjiang started the first phase of the sight restoration project in 1997, which has brought sight to 45,000 cataract patients over the past five years, said Hu Zhibin, deputy director of the region's disabled persons' federation.

Xinjiang vows to bring sight to an additional 40,000 such patients through the second phase, which will focus on the vast rural areas of the region in the coming five years, Hu said.

By taking advantage of the progress of the first phase in creating a sight restoration network and administrative system, Xinjiang will continue to send medical teams, offer training courses for local ophthalmologists, help set up departments of ophthalmology in local hospitals and develop an expanding contingent of ophthalmologists.

During the first phase of the project, the region established some 12 departments of ophthalmology at county-level hospitals, offered training courses for 295 ophthalmologists, sent 13 groups of medical teams to various parts of the region and completed the establishment of digital data concerning cataract operations and eye illness treatment and prevention.

Presently, the number of cataract patients in Xinjiang totals 100,000 which is increasing at annual rate of 7,000, said Hu, adding that most of the patients in the remote areas failed to gettimely treatment and lost their sight as a result.

The sight restoration project was jointly launched by the Chinese government and the International Lions' Club, one of the world's largest charity organizations. Enditem

(Xinhua News Agency April 3, 2003)