(PRESS RELEASE) GENEVA – Today, thousands of Alcon associates worldwide are participating in activities to support the advancement of eye health in honor of World Sight Day. To celebrate the occasion, the company announced a theme for the upcoming year, “Alcon: The Official Sponsor of 20/20”, which is designed to highlight its purpose of helping people around the world See Brilliantly in 2020 and beyond.
“Alcon is committed to increasing access to quality eye care. Through our innovative products and the great work of the Alcon Foundation, our more than 20,000 associates work every day to help people See Brilliantly,” said David J. Endicott, chief executive officer of Alcon. “Being the ‘Official Sponsor of 20/20’ is a fun way to demonstrate that everyone at Alcon, regardless of their role, shares a common goal of helping people around the world preserve their sight. We look forward to our associates bringing the theme to life in creative ways by hosting vision screenings and launching other activities designed to promote eye health in the year ahead.”
According to the World Health Organization, approximately 1.3 billion people globally live with some form of vision impairment, and it is estimated that 80 percent of those conditions can be treated, prevented or cured.1 World Sight Day, coordinated by the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB) and held annually on the second Thursday in October, is an international day of awareness to bring attention to the global issue of avoidable blindness and visual impairment.
This World Sight Day, Alcon and its associates are participating in activities that support eye health awareness and access to quality eye care, including:
- Fort Worth-based Alcon Foundation is sponsoring free eye health and vision screenings at the State Fair of Texas on October 10. The exams are being conducted by staff of Dallas’ Cedar Springs Eye Clinic and Fort Worth’s Community Eye Clinic, which provide low-cost or free exams, treatment and glasses to uninsured/underinsured patients in North Texas.
- Alcon associates in Brazil, China, Czech Republic, Hong Kong, Hungary, Ireland, Japan, Mexico, Romania, Taiwan, the United Kingdom and the United States are participating in the Cycle for Sight 20/20 Challenge, an annual company initiative that challenges 2,020 participants to ride stationary or traditional bikes to raise funds for vision and eye health charities.
- In Taiwan, Alcon is partnering with the Ophthalmological Society of Taiwan to promote “Eye Protection 1-2-3,” an initiative to promote awareness of dry eye syndrome caused by excessive screen time.
- In Portugal, Alcon is joining efforts with the Portuguese Society of Ophthalmology to raise awareness of eye health through a variety of initiatives, including free visual screenings for the public.
- In Spain, we are launching the Visionary Program – an initiative that aims to enhance the research work of women in the scientific field by making their achievements more visible.
Beyond World Sight Day, Alcon’s Corporate Giving efforts, including the Alcon Foundation and Alcon Cares, help people around the world see brilliantly year round by increasing access to quality eye care and driving eye care provider training and skills transfer, including:
- Approximately 150 Alcon Fort Worth associates are certified children and adult vision screeners who help screen children in schools and day care centers, as well as adults and seniors at local community centers.
- Throughout Alcon’s 40-year partnership with Orbis, an international non-profit that brings people together to fight avoidable blindness, Alcon biomedical engineers have volunteered their time, skills and expertise to provide equipment training and perform maintenance on the eye care machinery aboard the Flying Eye Hospital – a state-of-the-art teaching facility complete with operating room, classroom and recovery room.
- In 2018 alone, Alcon donated products and equipment to support 600 charitable medical missions, which made possible more than 36,000 sight-saving surgeries and provided more than 414,000 underserved patients with eye care services they would not have otherwise received.