Aravind Eye Care System Wins 2007 Award

June 30th 2007 - The winner of the António Champalimaud Vision Award was announced today on the video website “YOUTUBE” (see video here) at 6.00 pm (GMT) by Leonor Beleza, President of the Champalimaud Foundation.

• This year the Award is given to an exceptional contribution to the alleviation of visual problems

• Thirty four candidates from the five continents applied

• The 1 million € Award is one of the biggest in the world

• Next year the Award will recognize major breakthroughs in the understanding of vision

• In the video: statements from Leonor Beleza, Prof. Alfred Sommer (President of the Jury) and Dr. P. Namperumalsamy (Chairman of Aravind)

ABOUT ARAVIND

Established in 1976 with the mission of eliminating needless blindness, Aravind is the largest and most productive eye care facility in the world and is based in Madurai, India. Taking its compassionate services to the doorstep of rural India, Aravind’s stunningly effective strategies vaulted barriers of distance, poverty and ignorance to create a self-sustaining system. From April 2006 to March 2007, including the work done in the Managed Eye Hospitals, over 2.3 million out patients were treated and over 270,444 surgeries were performed.

Today the Aravind Eye Care System encompasses five hospitals, a manufacturing centre for ophthalmic products, an international research foundation and a resource and training centre that is revolutionising hundreds of eye care programs across the developing world.
http://www.aravind.org

ABOUT THE AWARD

The award has the support of Vision 2020 – The Right To Sight, a global initiative for the prevention of blindness launched in association with the UN´s World Health Organisation. The award will be given alternatively between contributions to overall vision research and contributions to the alleviation of visual problems, primarily in developing countries. The recipients of the award will be productive research groups rather than single individuals. This may involve groups from more than one institution or discipline.
The award will be given through a selection process from among: Applications received directly from potential awardees, groups identified by the jury and invited to apply, and nominations from the scientific community.
The jury of the award consists of a distinguished panel of outstanding scientists involved in vision research, and of exceptional public figures involved in meeting the needs of the developing world.
The award may be used in any way that furthers the outstanding contribution of the recipients. The Antonio Champalimaud Vision Award will be given for the first time in 2007 to a contribution, primarily in developing countries, to the alleviation of visual problems.

Members of the Jury
• Mark Bear
• Susumu Tonegawa
• Alfred Sommer
• Carla Shatz
• Joshua Sanes
• Paul Sieving
• Gullapalli N. Rao
• Amartya Sen
• Mary Robinson
• Jacques Delors
• José Cunha-Vaz
• António Guterres

Media contact:

Vítor Cunha
+351 96 6619794
vcunha@jlma.pt

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