VIENTIANE, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- Five doctors and nurses from China's Shanghai will provide free-of-charge cataract surgery in Laos from October 11 to 14 to mark the World Sight Day.
It will be the first time for the team to carry out the procedures in Laos. They will perform the surgery at the Ophthalmology Center in the Lao capital Vientiane.
Khamkhoune Holanouphap, the center's deputy director, said the team expects to remove cataracts from about 200 elderly people, local daily Vientiane Times reported on Monday.
The event is considered to be important because it will raise awareness of ways to prevent blindness.
"World Sight Day is an annual event focusing on the problem of global blindness; it aims to raise public awareness around the world about the prevention and treatment of loss of vision," Khamkhoune said.
"Providing access to eye care, which reduces the magnitude of avoidable blindness, is part of the obligation under the right to the highest attainable standard of health," Khamkhoune said.
World Sight Day is observed annually every Thursday in the second week of October. This year, World Sight Day falls on October 13.
