The World Report on Vision Launch in Bangladesh

The WHO launched the Word Report on Vision (WRV) at a global level on 9 October, 2019 on the eve of World Sight Day 2019.

Since then, IAPB in collaboration with respective Ministries of health, WHO, IAPB members and national stakeholders has been working to coordinate country launches of the World report on vision to ensure its implementation at the national level.

In the South East Asia region, Bangladesh was the first to hold a launch. The event took place on 19 and 20 January 2020. The Honourable Minster of Health, Zahid Maleque, officially launched the report.

During the launch, the minister committed to allocating adequate resources to strengthen primary eye care, including the addition of 500 vision centres in the near future.

Following the launch, a workshop was organized to prepare the national strategic eye health plan of Bangladesh in line to the recommendations of WRV. In the workshop, members of Bangladesh National Committee of Blindness, eye health experts, policy makers and  national eye care stakeholders of Bangladesh, including many IAPB members such as Orbis International, The Fred Hollows Foundation, CBM, Sightsavers, and Essilor actively participated in the meeting. After two days of presentations and vigorous discussions, the workshop made several recommendations to include in the national eye health plan of Bangladesh.