Preventing Diabetic Retinopathy Blindness in China

Thank you very much for your generous support towards our eye care project “A national model to prevent blindness caused by Diabetic Retinopathy (DR): early intervention and control network building” in Rural China.

Joining force with local partner, the National Committee for Prevention of Blindness, this project has been doing well in five counties including Hebei, Shandong, Shanxi, Sichuan and Guizhou provinces and we would like to share with you our key achievements in 2022:

• 441 medical professionals including 16 doctors, 16 nurses and 409 general practitioners received training on DR early detection, diagnosis and referral, diabetes mellitus and DR patient management

• 39,293 patients visited the eye department of the county hospitals, of which 2,086 patients with diabetic eye disease

• 5,970 people were screened in counties during the DR eye care promotion activities, of which 2,355 patients were detected with DR and referred to project hospitals for further examinations

• 207 patients with diabetic eye disease received treatment, including laser surgeries and anti-VEGF injection

• 50 low-income patients received subsidies for treatment

With your continous support, we would wish to extend the project to the second phrase expanding our services to 10 county hospitals continuing our training and eye screening work.

Thank you again for joining force to save diabetic patients from avoidable blindness!