KARACHI, Oct 13: Speakers at a seminar held in connection with World Sight Day-2011 on Thursday stressed the need for adequate government investment in the elimination of preventable blindness and educational programmes for communities on the importance of eye health.

They noted that though cataract problems had been addressed considerably, the country would be facing diabetes-related visual impairment and blindness problems significantly in the next decade.

World Sight Day is observed every year on the second Thursday in October by organisations and institutions working on public health and care for human eye health.

According to World Health Organisation estimates, about 285 million people worldwide are visually impaired, 65 per cent of whom are aged between 50 years and above. Yet 80 per cent of the cases are due to causes which can be prevented, treated or cured, while 90 per cent of blind people live in developing countries.

As many as 39 million people are blind in the world and two-third of them are women while 246 million have low vision (moderate and severe visual impairment). About 19 million children are visually impaired globally.

The experts expressed the view that the government and the private sector organisations should develop the relevant and required manpower and the eye health infrastructures both in urban and rural areas and promote the masses to adopt preventive measures against blindness and low vision. The steps would help reduce the needless expenditure of individuals, families and communities every year, they pointed out.

Prof Dr M Saleh Memon of Al-Ebrahim Eye Hospital, Malir in Gadap Town, said that blindness and vision impairment were global public health issues, but no one should remain deprived of sight due to ignorance of individuals concerned or their parents and community, non-availability or non-affordability of the needed treatment.

He said that there were around 1.6 million blind people in the country while 53 per cent (890,400) of the cases were due to cataract. The other causes of blindness included refractive error (3.4pc), corneal opacity (14 pc), glaucoma (7pc) and other posterior segments (9.5 pc), he said, adding that the country had witnessed the prevalence of blindness rate lowered now to 1.05pc in comparison to the rate of 1.78pc that existed in 1990, mainly by reducing cataract backlog from 66.7pc to 53pc.

However, according to Dr Memon, any considerable achievement cannot be seen in the cases of refractive blindness, which is 100 per cent preventable; corneal blindness, again a preventable disease and glaucoma, a treatable disease.

The prevalence rate of refractive blindness is 3.4 per cent, while the rate of corneal blindness has increased from 12.6pc to 14pc and of glaucoma from 3.9pc to 7pc, he said.

Dr Memon warned that posterior segment disease was going to increase due to diabetes, which had assumed an epidemic status.

Suggesting required measures, Dr Memon said that highly-trained ophthalmologists and costly technology was needed to treat posterior segment diseases while there was also a need for developing district health care instead of focusing on the tertiary medical centres.

He said that if provided with the required resources, all the preventive activities regarding corneal diseases, glaucoma, and diabetes-related blindness could be carried out at district headquarters hospitals.

More than 90pc of cataracts and all refraction and most of the squint cases could be operated and addressed at district headquarters hospitals, he added.

Representing another non-governmental organisation, Hassan Minto said that there was a dire need to make reforms in the primary healthcare system.

“We need to have deployment of specialists and relevant paramedics and their training and updating of knowledge and establishment of new centres accommodating the people reporting with sight problems,” he said.

The additional secretary of the Sindh health department, Dr Khalid Sheikh, said that the population of blind people in the country was around 1.5 million, out of which 300,000 lived in Sindh.

Pakistan was also a signatory of the Vision-2020, a global initiative launched by the World Health Organisation in collaboration with the International Agency for Prevention and Blindness committed to eliminating the avoidable causes of blindness, he said and mentioned that lately the Sindh government had allocated Rs329.319 million for a three-year public sector interventions.

He said that during the current crisis in the wake of torrential rains about 70,000 cases of eye infection had been reported, while about 99,000 cases of eye infection registered in the camps due to floods last year which testified that the environment and hygienic conditions had a greater role in increase of eye diseases.

He said that the provincial prevention and control of blindness cell headed by Prof Dr Idress Adhi would continue its efforts to address the problems of cataract, glaucoma, retinopathy in premature infants and other eyes related diseases.

The government was also working for appointment of more ophthalmologists and optometrists and ophthalmic technicians at the earliest, he said.

Prof Shahid Wahab, Dr Imam Yar Baig, lady health supervisor FarzanaYaqoob and Abdul Karim Memon also spoke.