In Southern China, ICEE is heading a project that will potentially address the vision care needs of 77,000 children in one of China’s most remote and marginalised regions.

Lechang, in Southern China, is one of the poorest areas in rural Guandong Province. With rural annual incomes averaging approximately $US456, households have limited funds available to access quality eye care. Unfortunately, China has one of the largest incidences of uncorrected myopia, affecting as many as 54% of children in the 13 - 17 age bracket. An uneven distribution of optometric personnel and limited family funds available to access eye care, have resulted in a country in the midst of a health care crisis.

As part of the Lechang Project, ICEE with support from the Zhongshan Ophthalmic Centre at Sun Yat-Sen University is educating fourth year optometry students and local health workers to screen for refractive errors and eye diseases.

ICEE Education Development Officer, Daniel Cui said of the project, “This project, over a relatively short period of time, will significantly increase the number of skilled eye care personnel available to provide screenings and identify vision threatening eye disease.” He added, “For many of the children, we reach with this project, it will be the first time they will have received an eye examination.”

“Our hope is that by educating optometry students and local health workers there will be a direct, positive impact on eye care in the region,” said Mr Cui.

“We hope that once the initial programme is complete it can be extended to an additional 247 schools in the county,” Mr Cui added.

Funding for the ICEE Lechang Project is provided by Optometry Giving Sight.