• Submitted by: manso
• international
• 03 / 02 / 2011

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Quito, Mar 1 (Prensa Latina) Cuban health professionals with the Operation Miracle program in Ecuador held their fourth scientific meeting at three ophthalmologic centers.

Since 2006, more than 100,000 patients have received free eye surgery as part of the program in Ecuador.

Some 14 scientific papers and a roundtable on the development of that internationalist mission in Ecuador since its beginning five years ago were presented in the Eloy Alfaro Eye Center, in Latacunga, in the Andean province of Cotopaxi.

Since then, about 19,131 patients suffering from cataracts have undergone surgery at that center, mostly indigenous and low-income people.

According to the World Health Organization, in 2008 Ecuador had more than 70,000 blind people, 80 percent from cataracts, which is irreversible in most patients, while and many have now recovered their sight thanks to the Cuban physicians.