The Director of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, S.Elango, on Saturday urged school teachers to be aware of health issues, seasonal diseases and current trends in public health so that they can provide right information to the children.
He pointed out that teachers must possess good knowledge about health issues because there are so many rumours and wrong information being spread among people now, particularly about chikungunya.
Dr.Elango was speaking after distributing prizes to school students at the ‘World Sight Day-2009’ drawing competition function held at the Government Rajaji Hospital here. The District Blindness Control Society (Madurai), Department of Public Health and National Ophthalmic Association had conducted a competition for school children to mark the World Sight Day and create awareness about eye care/eye donation.
“Some of the current health issues are A(H1N1) influenza, chikungunya panic and viral fever cases. If teachers at school level knew about these issues and about seasonal diseases, they will be able to disseminate right information and explain prevention aspects,” the Director said.
He urged the school students also to show interest in knowing about diseases. Dr.Elango stressed that school-going children must eat nutritious food to have good eye sight.
The three VIII standard students who won prizes in the drawing competition were: S.Maruthupandi of Al-Ameen Higher Secondary School, M.Nivethakrishnan of M.N.U. Jeyaraj Nadar Higher Secondary School and K.R.Balaji of Thiyagarajar Model Higher Secondary School.
M.Veerasamy, vice-president, National Ophthalmic Association, spoke on rural eye care while P.Thiyagarajan, Programme Manager, District Blindness Control Society (Madurai), explained about World Sight Day.
K.V.Maheswaran, Dean in-charge, Government Rajaji Hospital, and A.Palanichamy, Deputy Director of Health Services, were among those present.
