Countess of Wessex supports World Sight Day

OHMYGOSSIP — Britain’s Countess of Wessex has written an article in The Telegraph newspaper to raise awareness of preventable blindness with the Vision 2020 initiative.

Britain’s Countess of Wessex is raising awareness of World Sight Day.

The 48-year-old royal – whose nine-year-old daughter Lady Louise Windsor was born with the eye defect exotropia – has penned an article in The Telegraph newspaper, describing visual impairment as “a matter of life and death” for people in the third world and branding it “tragic” that 80 per cent of sight loss is due to preventable conditions.

She writes: “Every year the eye health sector celebrates World Sight Day when hundreds of activities are organised to draw attention to the huge issue of preventable blindness.

“This year the sector is encouraging everyone to have an eye exam. It is the first opportunity for diagnosis of practically every eye condition, many of which can lead to blindness if untreated.

“Those are the very skills that wonderful eye health organisations such as ORBIS and the IAPB are taking round the world; they now need support to give them the means to help even more people. Fundraising is vital and I am hugely grateful to those who support the life changing work these organisations do.

“It is an important first step in creating a world where no-one is needlessly blind and where everyone with unavoidable vision loss can live to their full potential.”

Sophie is the Patron of Vision 2020, a World Health Organisation and IAPB project to eliminate the main causes of preventable blindness by 2020, and is encouraging people to give generously to the cause.

She has recently returned from a trip to India where she witnessed the work of ORBIS, which operates a special eye hospital staffed by volunteer surgeons.