‘25 per cent of blindness can be prevented’

Reducing preventable blindness by 25 per cent by 2019 in Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and elsewhere in the country is very much possible provided there is equal distribution of medical services, infrastructure and manpower everywhere, eye specialists and policy-makers said on Tuesday.
In a workshop to chalk out an action plan to reduce preventable blindness in South East Asian countries and India at L.V. Prasad Eye Institute, experts lamented that there are States, which are lagging in terms of services on eye care.

Lagging behind

Specialists said that while Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu have continued to excel, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Jammu and Kashmir, North Eastern States among others are far behind in terms of eye care.
“Infrastructure and manpower continues to remain a major challenge. There is a need to concentrate on making eye care accessible to all the States. We have however, made a lot of progress in addressing cataract, the leading causes of blindness among preventable eye ailments,” said Chairman, LVPEI, Dr. G.N. Rao in a media meet.

Among all the cases of preventable blindness, the incidence of cataract is between 42 and 49 per cent, followed by refractive errors, glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy, etc. In the 11 South East Asian countries, there are 105 million cases of avoidable blindness out of which Indian accounts to a whopping 53 crore, they said.

Workshop

“The workshop is an attempt to reduce blindness in South East Asia. Members from WHO, International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAP), members from Ministry of Health, GOI and key organisations are participating in this workshop. By the end of the programme, we will have an action plan on reducing blindness,” IAPB, Regional Chair, South East Asia, Dr. Taraprasad Das
Source: http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-andhrapradesh/25-per-cent-of-blindness-can-be-prevented/article6613339.ece