"It is very nice to see clearly again," said Sun Boda, after the operation.

She was the oldest patient to undergo the cataract removal operation in China.

Xing Jianqiang, an ophthalmologist at Hainan Medical College, said his college had received several centenarian patients in the past, but Sun was the oldest.

During the nationwide campaign for regaining eyesight, Sight First China Action, sponsored by the Lion's Club International (LCI), one of the world's largest charity organizations, more than 10,000 cataract patients in Hainan Province have regained their eyesight.

Sun, born in July 1896, has 47 descendants with the oldest son aged 77. She could not remember when she developed cataracts, but her inability to see her 47 descendants was the greatest sorrow in her life.

(Xinhua News Agency July 5, 2003)