A thousand blind people can see again thanks to the youtuber with the most subscribers in the world

The youtuber Mr. Beast paid for cataract surgery for 1,000 blind or near-blind people, allowing them to see.

The youtuber, who has more than 130 million followers, released a video entitled “1,000 blind people see for the first time”, in which he reported the before and after of the patients who underwent the operation. In many cases, patients – who could not afford the surgery – received up to 10,000 euros.

According to El Confidencial, it is estimated that more than 300 million people in the world suffer from some type of visual impairment. Of these, a large number suffer from cataracts, a problem that can be solved with a simple surgery, but to which many people do not have access due to lack of resources.

Ophthalmologist and surgeon Jeff Levenson was responsible for the first surgery session, which took place in the city of Jacksonville, in the US state of Florida. The doctor recognized that “half of the blind people in the world are people who only need a 10 minute surgery”.

THE CNN, indicated that he had cataract surgery himself, which led him to want to help others. “In the days and weeks after my own cataract surgery, I was struck by how bright and beautiful and vivid the world was,” he said.

“I was struck by the idea that there are hundreds of millions, probably 200 million people worldwidewho are blind or nearly blind because of cataracts and who do not have access to surgery,” he continued.

One of Mr. Beast got in touch with the doctor and they started creating a list of poor people in the area who needed the surgery. They operated on 40 people in a single day, after 11 hours of work.

Jeff Leverson put Mr. Beast connects with an NGO that provides free eye care to needy patients around the world. They managed to operate on people in Jamaica, Honduras, Namibia, Mexico, Indonesia, Brazil, Vietnam and Kenya.

“If Mr. Beast managed to light the fuse, and if we can get government and private support, we could end up with half of the world’s blindness. At a very low cost and with incredible gains in productivity and human potential”, added the doctor.

Mr. Beast has already donated a private plane, worth 2 million euros, and created a contest where he gave 500 thousand euros to the last person to leave a circle.