Many school children in the district are facing vision problems due to eye disorders, thanks to malnutrition and lack of health awareness among parents.
According to experts, some eye disorders in children must be diagnosed at an early stage to prevent loss of vision in future. Availability of paediatric ophthalmologists with specialised training, expertise and examination equipment is also need of the hour to tackle eye disorders among children.
Srikakulam District Blindness Control Society programme manager G.V. Ramana Kumar, Indian Red Cross Society-Srikakulam chairman P. Jaganmohana Rao and IRCS- Eye Donation Centre district coordinator M.R.K. Das decided to create awareness among teachers and parents so that they would identify eye defects among children at an early stage.
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According to them, about 11 lakh people in the country are suffering from corneal blindness and among them 60 percent are children.
“Teachers have to play a key role in identifying the vision problems among the children who spend most of the day time in schools. It is easy to observe the defects since children will face difficulties in reading and writing if they are suffering from eye disorders,” said Dr. Ramana Kumar.
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Both DBCS and IRCS decided to take up awareness programmes from August 25 to September 8 so that people would understand the importance of eye donation. “We could collect about 40 corneas by convincing the family members of deceased persons. IRCS Eye Donation Centre developed mechanism to collect the corneas even from nook and corner of the district,” said Mr. Jaganmohana Rao and Mr. Das.