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Cuban ophthalmologists
will treat patients in MST encampments
Agência
Brasil, February
23, 2006.
Brasília - Two Cuban ophthalmologists
who are part of the Miracle Mission, which
treats visual deficiencies and ailments
such as cataracts, glaucoma, and strabismus
(squinting), paid a visit, yesterday (22),
to the Landless Rural Workers' Movement
(MST) encampment in Brazlândia, on
the outskirts of the Federal District.
The MST signed a partnership with the mission,
which should begin offering treatment to
patients in the encampments at the end of
March. According to Ada Madariaga, a physican
and coordinator of the Miracle Mission,
"the project is directed at poor patients
without the economic means to have access
to this type of operation in their countries."
The project is currently active in 24 Latin
American and Caribbean countries and has
already provided care to 210 thousand people,
all of whom have been treated in Cuba. Madariaga
explained that the Cuban ophthalmologists
who work in the associated countries indicate
which patients should receive treatment.
"The patients go to Cuba to be operated.
Their travel is provided by the Cuban Aviation
company, and they are always accompanied
by medical teams," she informed.
The project was inaugurated a little over
a year and a half ago by the Cuban government
and gets help from the government of Venezuela.
The doctors who visited Brasília
were invited by social action groups to
discuss the work of the Mission. They are
part of a delegation of 131 Cuban ophthalmologists
attending the 30th International Ophthalmology
Meeting, in São Paulo.
The Cuban ambassador to Brazil, Pedro Nunes,
said that the mission's objective is to
treat 100 million people in the next ten
years. According to Nunes, this represents
Cuba's contribution to achieving the goal
set by the World Health Organization (WHO)
of erasing the number of cases of curable
blindness around the world by 2020. "Over
200 thousand people have already recovered
their vision and are once again able to
see the light, which is so indispensable
to people's quality of life," he observed.
WHO data show that more than 37 million
people suffer from some type of visual deficiency,
caused, for the most part, by cataracts,
and that 6 million Latin Americans are victims
of some form of ophthalmological disease.
Translation: David Silberstein
© Agencia Brasil
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