PUNE: A nationwide study conducted in all schools for the blind revealed that causes of childhood blindness are changing as our society is making socioeconomic progress. This large study was conducted by HV Desai Eye Hospital’s expert team and supported by Bajaj Finance Ltd, said Principal Investigator Dr Sucheta Kulkarni.
Col M Deshpande, Chief Medical Director at HV Desai Eye Hospital said that it is an established fact that causes of blindness in children are a proxy indicator of the health system of the country and hence, the economic progress that a country is making.
“For example- unavoidable causes such as blindness due to brain hypoxia is common in western countries while Vitamin A deficiency related blindness is common in African countries. In this study, nearly 2,000 children enrolled in schools for the blind in Maharashtra were examined in 2019,” said Deshpande. He said that ill-developed eye at birth is the major cause of blindness (47%) followed by corneal and retinal causes (15% each) and cataract (7%).
“Every third child (32%) was blind due to a cause which could have been prevented or treated. Comparison of these findings with a previous similar study conducted by HV Desai team 15 years ago showed that blindness du e to vitamin A deficiency is decreasing but that due to retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) is increasing. This indicates the success of the government’s vitamin A supplementation programme to pregnant mothers and children but implies that the government now needs to brace up to tackle blindness due to ROP which is seen in premature babies. There is a need to train more and more doctors to manage cataract and ROP in children,” said Dr Kulkarni.
She further said that nearly 15 per cent of the children in these schools were ‘not blind’ and could be helped with special devices or low vision devices which could enhance their vision.
“There is a need to increase awareness that all visually impaired children are not necessarily blind. Proper and timely examination by experts can help identify children who can see better with low vision devices.
Unfortunately, such experts are located in big cities and needy children are often in remote rural areas. Training of more and more paramedical staff to provide low vision services in all districts is the need of the hour,” said Dr Kulkarni.
