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"SightFirst China Action" Team Leaves for Xinjiang
A government-backed "SightFirst China Action" medical team left Beijing Thursday to start its one-month working tour in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
The team, which has 12 medical experts, will help a number of local cataract patients, of different ethnic groups, to recover their sight through operations.
At a ceremony at the Great Hall of the People, State Councilor Ismail Amat handed over the team's flag and highlighted the importance of the dispatching of the medical team to Xinjiang.
"It shows the priority given by the Party and the government to improveme the status of cataract patients as well as the Xinjiang people," he said.
China has over 60 million disabled people, involving almost one-fifth of Chinese families. According to Deng Pufang, chairman of the China Disabled Persons Federation (CDPF), among the nine million blind people in the country, four million lost their sight due to cataract.
"SightFirst China Action" is a five-year program co-funded by the Ministry of Health, the CDPF and the Lions Club International and plans to help 1.5 million Chinese cataract patients regain their sight through free operations.
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