Eye care non-profit Orbis International and Hoya Vision Care have renewed a partnership that began in 2021.
Support from Hoya Vision Care over the next three years will enable Orbis to focus on helping school children get access to eye care in low- to middle-income countries. It will also enable eye care professionals around the world to be trained through Cybersight, Orbis’s award winning telemedicine and e-learning platform.
To provide vision care, Orbis develops teams of ophthalmic personnel and supports them with digital and clinical equipment to perform screenings and provide spectacles. The teams also provide referrals, for children who require further examination and treatment, to an Orbis partner hospital or to the nearest Vision Centre.
Hoya Vision Care’s contribution will enable Orbis to screen more than 500,000 children and provide more than 15,000 spectacles as part of the REACH (Refractive Error Among Children) program in India.
The global lens company will also work with Orbis to support Vision Centres in India, which make eye care accessible in rural communities, offering affordably priced care for low-income individuals, and free care for those who cannot pay. Hoya Vision Care’s contribution to Cybersight will enable the provision of free access to virtual training on myopia for eye care professionals in areas with a high prevalence of myopia, such as China and parts of Southeast Asia.
Hoya Vision Care and Orbis aim to continue working together to expand their collaboration across other geographies.
Image: HOYA Vision Care’s support will bolster Orbis’s work to provide eye screenings for children across India. During the COVID-19 pandemic, HOYA provided critical funding to help the Orbis India team transition to door-to-door screenings when school-based screenings could not take place. Photo: Rishang Mangaonkar
