7 million patients served worldwide by the Eye Care Foundation

The Eye Care Foundation (ECF) is proud to announce that we treated the 7th million patient since our start in 1984. We help, prevent and cure avoidable blindness and vision impairment in Laos, Vietnam, Nepal, Cambodia and Tanzania. We thank our donors who made this possible and work hard to reach the next million because no life should be lived in the dark as we can help it. Björn Stenvers (51) CEO explains how the Eye Care Foundation wants to make an impact in the far remote areas in the world.

“Worldwide 1.1 billion people live with vision loss and of these 90% of vision loss is preventable or treatable (WHO/ IAPB Atlas, 2023). Of all the countries (population 250 mio) where we – ECF – have programs, 36 mio people have vision loss (around 58% is female) of which 1.2 mio is blind. Worldwide 90% of all vision loss is preventable or treatable!”, Stenvers.

We want to make a difference, a real impact!
CEO Stenvers continues “We also focus on the young: (school) children in the far remote areas in Asia, Africa and now also in Latin-America. Globally, at least 450 million children have a sight condition that needs treatment, with 90 million children living with some form of sight loss. (448 million children have refractive errors and 90 million children live with sight loss).

Our dream is to end avoidable blindness and vision impairment and thus improve the socio-economic and social-cultural position of vulnerable people, to enable them to reach their full potential. ECF strives to ensure a world where both effective cataract treatment and refractive error prevention plus treatment are accessible for all of those in need.”