U.S. doctors providing eye care in Viet Nam

More than 8,800 primary- and secondary-school students in the Vietnamese Central Highlands province of Kon Tum will have their vision screened and get glasses if required under a U.S.-funded project.

Plans call for screenings at 20 schools in the province by July 2012, U.S. embassy officials said.. The project is funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and implemented by Helen Keller International, a New York-based nonprofit organization that works to prevent blindness and reduce malnutrition.

The project also will train provincial health personnel in pediatric ophthalmology to provide follow-up care.

An estimated one in five Vietnamese children suffers from refractive error, but the vast majority remains undiagnosed and untreated, leaving young children with the high risk of blindness and irreversible vision loss. – —

-Wire reports