About 7.4 million people in Bangladesh have serious vision problems, a large share of them caused by cataract. Cataract can be fully cured by surgery, but eye care is scarce at the grassroots, so many people are not treated in time.
The figures were presented in the keynote paper at a Bangladesh Blind Foundation meeting at the National Press Club on Thursday, 8 October, to mark World Sight Day. Golam Mostafa, the foundation's founder, said refractive errors are rising among children and diabetic retinopathy among older people, and that losing sight affects work, social standing and financial independence, not only vision.
The paper said eye care is still concentrated in Dhaka and the big cities, and every district and upazila needs services, with vision centres in remote areas. Citing the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB), it said more than 2 billion people worldwide have some eye problem, and in about 1 billion of them it could have been prevented with proper treatment and awareness.
Speakers called for meeting the government's goal of eliminating cataract blindness within five years and for NGOs to expand free cataract surgery and spectacles in rural areas. They also proposed regular school eye tests and vitamin A capsule programmes for children, and routine eye checks in factories and offices.
To ease screen strain, the meeting recommended the "20-20-20" rule: every 20 minutes, look at something at least 20 feet away for at least 20 seconds. Faridpur-4 MP Shahidul Islam Babul and Mansur Ahmed Chowdhury, chairman of the TIB board of trustees, attended.
Photo: Rakesh Ahuja, MD / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Source: samakal
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