Noor Dubai, a charity initiative focused on preventing and treating low vision and curable forms of blindness around the world, said it has successfully treated over 11,000 people in Chad at its free cataract treatment camp in Ndjamena recently.

The camp was organised in collaboration with Al Basar International, a Saudi-based NGO focused on the prevention of blindness.

The UAE-based Noor Dubai and Al Basar teams worked two six-hour shifts daily between March 12 to 26 at the camp, completing 1,000 surgeries with range of 100 surgeries everyday and also screened 11,000 patients.

An additional 3,000 were given prescription eyeglasses from Noor Dubai.

Qadhi Saeed Al Murooshid, CEO of Noor Dubai and director general of the Dubai Health Authority, said: "We are very proud of Noor Dubai’s significant achievements in Chad, part of Noor Dubai’s hands-on contribution to human development across the Arab world, Africa and South Asia."

"Chad camp has achieved notable success with not only treating thousands of patients, but succeeded to bring the sight again for more than 100 critical cases, who were suffering from total blindness ranging from 4 to 10 years," he noted.

“The Noor Dubai is one of many examples of Dubai sharing its world-class standards in healthcare with the less fortunate around the world, a task given to us by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, UAE vice president and prime minister and Dubai ruler,” he added.

Sheikh Mohammed established Noor Dubai in September 2008 with the goal to treat and improve the lives of more than one million patients in its first year.

Since then, Noor Dubai has instituted free treatment camps in Dubai, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Sudan and Yemen.

The charity also recently announced partnerships with the Lions Club International Foundation and ORBIS International to fight river blindness and other forms of vision loss across Africa.-TradeArabia News Service