The King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Centre launched on Tuesday a medical campaign in Dhaka to treat tens of thousands of Bangladeshi schoolchildren suffering from eye disease.
The campaign is part of KSrelief’s ophthalmological interventions in Bangladesh, where volunteer doctors from Saudi Arabia help Bangladeshis retain or regain their eyesight. The center’s Saudi Noor Volunteer Program, which was held in May, reached more than 4,700 people.
“Helping to reduce the rate of blindness and visual impairments in Bangladesh has been (a) top priority for (the) King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center,” Dr. Aqeel Al-Ghamdi, KSrelief’s assistant supervisor-general for planning and development, told reporters as he launched the program in Dhaka.
The campaign will start with training teachers, as they will be the first to identify students who need help.
“The screening program is in 50 schools in Dhaka. It will cover around 30,000 students. This morning, we visited one of the high schools, and we started the program there. They will screen around 1,000 students in the next three days,” Al-Ghamdi told Arab News.
Under the program, KSrelief will provide glasses for students who need them, while those who may require more medical assistance will be sent to doc-tors.
“It will change a lot for the students in their aca-demic activity (and) in their life, actually. In this program, I hope the best for the students,” Al-Ghamdi said.
Saudi Ambassador to Bangladesh Essa Al-Duhailan said during the event that the medical campaign also illustrates the wide-ranging scope of Saudi-Bangladesh relations.
“Our relationship is a multidimensional relationship. It’s not only concentrated in manpower and Hajj and Umrah visits, but it is more than this,” he told reporters.
KSrelief provides humanitarian and development support to millions of beneficiaries in 94 countries. More than 6 million people have received the center’s assistance in Bangladesh, where 52 projects worth about $25 million have been conducted since 2015.
