Over 190,000 poor cataract patients receive free treatment in China

BEIJING - A total of 192,453 impoverished cataract patients hailing from China's poor areas have received free treatment from March 2018 to May 31, 2020, according to data released Friday during a press conference on ophthalmology.

Altogether, more than 90 million yuan (about $12.7 million) worth of subsidies have been granted to cataract patients in poor households, said Li Shoushan, deputy head of the China Poverty-Alleviation Promotion of Volunteer Service.

China now plans to offer free treatment to another 100,000 patients in poor areas across 22 provincial-level regions by the end of 2020, Li said.

Currently, the number of cataract operations per million people in China is close to 3,000, compared with 800 in 2000, which is a huge leap forward, said Zhou Changqiang, an official with the National Health Commission.

More importantly, cataract patients in China can receive timely treatment at present, said Wang Ningli, head of a national technical guidance group for blindness prevention. He estimated that over 70 percent of cataract patients in China have received timely treatment.

This year, China will observe its 25th National Eye Care Day on June 6.