POLOKWANE – Today is World Sight Day, an annual day of awareness that is held on the second Thursday of October.
On this day the world’s attention is focused on blindness and vision impairment. The theme for this year is Universal Eye Health.
Review spoke to Dr Ahmed Khan from SpecSavers at Mall of the North about children’s visits to optometrists.
“If the children are younger than six years old, we only screen them and refer them to an ophthalmologist (eye specialist). They then put eye drops in and do better tests. If they are still that young, they tend not to sit still or not look at the materials we use,” he explained.
He said parents usually notice a child younger than six years has eye problems when they call the child and the child cannot see where they are even though they are visible, or when they throw a ball and the child cannot see to catch it. “Another sign of a problem is if a child squints,” Khan added.
“Look after your eyes. If you have problems go to an optometrist and sort them out straight away,” Khan concluded.
Interesting facts about eye care:
• Approximately 285 million people worldwide live with low vision and blindness.
• Of these, 39 million people are blind and 246 million have moderate or severe visual impairment.
• 90% of blind people live in low-income countries.
• 80% of visual impairment is avoidable that is readily treatable and or preventable.
• Restoration of sight and blindness prevention strategies are among the most cost-effective interventions in healthcare.
• The number of people blind from infectious causes has been greatly reduced in the past 20 years.
• An estimated 19 million children are visually impaired.
• About 65% of all people who are visually impaired are aged 50 years and older, while this age group comprises only 20% of the world’s population.
• Increasing elderly populations in many countries mean that more people will be at risk of age-related visual impairment. (www.iapb.org/advocacy/world-sight-day)
