Announcement of The World Bank's Credit for Project in India to Fight Cataract Blindness on May 12, 1994

,FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE World Bank 1818 H Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20433, U.S.A. *Telephone: (202) 477-1234 IDA Press Release No. 94/79SAS Contact: Gautam Adhikari (202) 458-1423 Ellen Tillier (202) 473-1790 . Merrell Tuck (202) 473-9516. Richard Skanik, Chief of the Population and Human Resources Operations Division (Ph. 202 458-0298) of the India Country Department and Maria Donoso Clark, Task Manager for the cataract project, are available for interviews. Dr. Jonathan Javin, Professor of Ophthalmology at Georgetown University in Washington, D. C., is available for interviews (ph. 202 687-4359). MILLIONS IN INDIA TO REGAIN SIGHT IN PROJECT TO FIGHT CATARACT BLINDNESS WASHINGTON, May 12, 1994 - More than 8 million Indians will undergo cataract surgery between now and the year 2000 as part of India's National Program for the Control of Blindness. The campaign will be supported by a credit of $117.8 million approved today by the International Development Association (IDA), the concessional lending arm of the World Bank. "This is the boldest effort yet to reduce blindness in a developing country," said Maria Donoso Clark, World Bank Task Manager for the project. "The project's main focus will be on restoring the sight of poor people, particularly women." As part of its "Health for All by 2000" program, Indian health officials want to reduce the prevalence of blindness from 1.3 to 0.3 per 1,000 by 2000. Yet India is far behind this target; a backlog of untreated cataracts has raised the prevalence of blindness there to one of the highest in the world. Throughout the world, an estimated 35 million people are blind, one third of whom live in India. About 13 million Indians are blind in both eyes, 80 percent of whom are blind from cataracts, and a further 10 million are afflicted by cataracts in one eye. Cataract blindness not only reduces the quality of life and the economic productivity of the affected individual, but also imposes a burden on others as a blind person becomes dependent on family members. Prevalence of cataracts is higher among women and in rural and tribal populations and, in contrast to industrial countries where it typically