Arizona eye doctor brings eyeglasses to Honduras

An Arizona eye doctor recently returned from a trip to Central America where he spent a week providing much-needed eye care to those who could not afford it. KVOA.com reports that Dr Dan Twelker traveled to Honduras for the second time, and along with handing out eyeglasses to those in need, he also taught them how to identify vision problems.

"I have been on many projects where we go one place and never go back," Twelker told the news source. "Rather than me needing to be there we can rely on trained local people to be able to help themselves."

Twelker frequently holds fund raisers to buy materials for his trips, and he brought between 500 and 600 pairs of eyewear to the country in June to correct refractive errors. He added that, although refractive errors can be remedied by an ordinary pair of corrective eyeglasses, it is a major cause of preventable vision loss.

According to the National Center for Biotechnology Information, uncorrected refractive errors could account for 15 percent of the total blind population and 50 percent of the low vision population.