According to the Helen Keller International, (HKI), cataract alone was responsible for 600,00 cases of blindness in Nigeria.
The incidence of trachoma infections was also rampant in the northern zone of the country. Tracing the causes of blindness, NGO said, it was linked to the hygiene and sanitation practices of the people.
According to a World Health Organisation study 70 to 80 per cent of all blindness cases in India are curable, said, Minister of State for Personnel and Parliamentary Affairs, Mr. Suresh Pachouri.
The minister also released a book 'Disaster Management through Panchayati Raj', written by Director General of Council for Advancement of People's Action and Rural Technology, Kamal Taori.
Researchers at the University of Florida's Genetics Institute successfully used gene therapy in mice to treat Retinoschisis, a rare incurable genetic eye disease that affects boys.
Retinal cells secrete a protein called Retinoschisin (RS1), which acts like a glue to bind the layers of the retina. Boys with Retinoschisis lack the ability to secrete RS1. The absence of this protein causes the retinal layers to separate and leads to the formation of tiny cysts. The boys lose their sight gradually, often with devastating results.
Scientists have discovered how to make cells sensitive to light. The research was published in the science journal, Nature. A team of experts, led by Dr. Rob Lucas, from the University of Manchester and Professor Mark Hankins, Imperial College, London, United Kingdom, found that melanopsin made the cells photoreceptive, which meant that the protein was able to absorb light.
Dr. Lucas said, “We introduced melanopsin to cells that do not normally use it. We found that the cell became photosensitised and was able to produce a biological signal.”
More than 40 million people infected with H.I.V./AIDS worldwide. Loss of vision and ocular complications are among the most common complication of infection, affecting 50 to 75 per cent of all AIDS patients.
India, with 5.3 million H.I.V.-affected people, faces a potential epidemic of blindness.
Cytomegalovirus Retinitis (C.M.V.), from the herpes virus group, is by far the most common disease affecting vision in people with AIDS.
Business leader and philanthropist John J. Moores has contributed 4 million to the Scripps Research Institute, world’s largest independent and non-profit biomedical research organisation based at La Jolla California, U.S.A.
The donation will be used to establish the ‘Worm Institute for Research and Medicine’ (W.I.R.M.), within the Scripps Institute that will combat parasitic worms, which cause river blindness and many other diseases around the world.
A team led by New York’s Columbia University, is hopeful that their work could help aid the development of the new treatment for Age-related Macular Degeneration (A.M.D.).
According to a research, nearly three-quarters of cases of one of the world’s most common causes of blindness are linked to just two genes. Previous work had shown that several variants of a gene called Factor H significantly increase the risk of A.M.D.
A state-of-the-art eye care centre that would house facilities; equipment and expertise related to eye care under one roof has been inaugurated at Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh.
The centre has 100 beds and eight operation theatres. In extension to the already existing department of ophthalmology, which started working in 1962, the advanced eye care centre would work as a tertiary centre with special focus on prevention and control of blindness.
Five-year-old Dinesh rubbed his eye while handling a paan sachet, which contained chunna (white limestone powder, also used for whitewashing). The eye became so watery and red that he had to be rushed to the hospital. The injury led to severe loss of vision.
Fortunately for him, science threw up an answer. The doctors at L. V. Prasad Eye Institute, Hyderabad, transferred stem cells to the boy's eye. Today, he can see and is careful not to touch stray paan packets.
If the results can be translated into a treatment for human eye disease, it could help millions of people suffering with conditions ranging from age-related macular degeneration to diabetes. In U.K., a team of scientists took cells from three to five-day old mice, a stage when the retina is about to be formed. The cells were then transplanted into animals, which had been genetically designed to have conditions, which meant they would gradually lose their sight - either mimicking the human disease retinitis pigmentosa or age-related macular degeneration.
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