5 Million Nigerian Children Suffering From Visual Impairment
Over five million children are suffering from visual impairment, the Chairman of the Ekiti State Chapter of the Nigerian Optometry Association (NOA), Dr. Ayo Osadare, has said.
Osadare who noted that recent statistics released by the World Health Organization (WHO) indicated that 19 million children are suffering from visual impairment globally, said one out of every four children have undetected vision problem that may impede their learning.
He lamented that 80 percent of cases of blindness in Nigeria were avoidable; describing the result of a recent survey which revealed that about 90 percent of school age children in Nigeria had never undergone any form of eye examination as worrisome.
Osadare who spoke in Ado Ekiti during an advocacy visit to the State Ministry of Information, Youth and Sports Development, said 12 million out of the 19 million estimated cases of visual impairment among children were as a result of refractive errors which could be corrected if detected early.
He disclosed that NOA would hold free vision screening for children in selected school nationwide in commemoration of the 2017 World Sight Day as part of efforts at reducing the prevalence of visual impairment in the country.
Calling for the integration of eye health into the school curriculum and the primary healthcare delivery system across the country, Osadare said his association was already making arrangements to train teachers from different schools to enable them identify suspected cases of visual impairment among their pupils, so that the effected pupil could undergo proper test and commence treatment if necessary.
