Chinese doctors strive to implant artificial crystal for panda with bad sight

Meng Yong'an, a prestigious Chinese eye surgeon, said on Friday that a follow-up examination of an elderly giant panda  Xiaoming proved the cataract removal surgery that he did on  Dec. 20 last year successful.

Xiaoming is a male wild panda discovered by farmers in the mountains in Taibai County, Shaanxi, in March 2007. He was weak and blind when he was found and was sent to the center rehabilitation.

Veterinarians discovered that the panda was completely blind in his right eye had a cataract on the left eye.

Ma Qingyi, director of the center, said pandas are near-sighted animals. Forty to sixty percent of wild pandas suffer from cataracts and other eye diseases.

Giant pandas are among the world's most endangered animals. There are about 1,590 pandas living in China's wild, mostly in Sichuan and the northwestern provinces of Shaanxi and Gansu. As of 2007, there were 239 captive bred giant pandas in the country.