Cos, a social eye centre, among the first in Italy, was inaugurated today in Sassari. This morning in via Quarto the presentation of a support structure promoted by Uici, the Italian Union of the Blind and Visually Impaired, with the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (Iapb).

«Thanks to UICI funding - reports Giorgio Ricci, of the IAPB national directorate - similar projects are starting in around thirty Italian cities. The objective is to strengthen prevention systems." Initiative of great value in Sardinia, the region with the highest incidence of diabetes, which often causes eye diseases. «We reach out to the weakest sections of the population with a series of tools, supplied by the structure, which allow both primary and secondary prevention».

All this thanks also to networking, such as that with Caritas and the Red Cross which will report the people with the greatest economic hardship and who need a visit. «Free screening will be carried out - comments the territorial president of the UICI Franco Santoro - and with the mobile unit we will also move around the villages. Thus combating the territorial isolation from which this island suffers where sometimes we arrive too late to cure diseases that have become irreversible." The Cos intercepts an important need, made even more pressing by the 25% increase in visually impaired people, as estimated by data on low vision for the next 10 years.