Lifeline Express, a project that converts trains into mobile hospitals for cataract operations, has provided free surgeries for 240,000 patients in remote and less developed areas across 28 provincial-level regions in more than three decades, according to the project operator.

The project was launched in 1997 as a gift from the people of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region to commemorate its return to the motherland, said the Chinese Foundation for Lifeline Express during a news conference in Beijing on Wednesday.

Since then, the fleet has grown to four trains and 33 hospitals have got involved in the initiative.

Meanwhile, the project has donated 96 ophthalmology centers in 24 provincial-level regions and trained more than 340 grassroots ophthalmologists on cataract surgical techniques.

Since 2016, the project has stepped up work in countries involved in the Belt and Road Initiative and carried out 4,360 cataract surgeries for patients from Uzbekistan and six other neighboring countries, as well as donated blindness prevention cooperation centers in four member states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

This year, the project is expected to dispatch two trains and provide free operations for about 6,000 cataract patients. It will also send mobile medical teams to five cities.