More than 80% of blind people in Vietnam can be prevented and cured.
"Prioritizing Child Eye Care" was chosen by the World Health Organization (WHO) as the theme of this year's World Sight Day.
In response to World Sight Day (Thursday of the second week of October), the Central Eye Hospital (Hanoi) calls on the community to raise awareness and join hands with the eye industry to care for and protect eyes, especially common eye diseases in children.
According to the Central Eye Hospital, Vietnam (VN) currently has about 2 million blind and visually impaired people. About 1/3 of them are poor, facing difficulties in treatment. More than 80% of blind people in VN can be prevented and cured. The main causes of blindness today through investigation show that: cataract is still the main cause (accounting for 66.1%), followed by fundus diseases, glaucoma, refractive errors...
Children need to be prevented and detected early for refractive errors to receive appropriate care and treatment.
By 2030, Vietnam strives to reduce the rate of blindness to less than 4 people/1,000 people, including reducing the rate of blindness in people over 50 years old to less than 12 people/1,000 people; the rate of cataract surgery is 95%; the rate of diabetic patients being examined and monitored for eye diseases is 75%. For children, the rate of refractive errors in schools being examined, detected early, provided with refractive services and refractive correction glasses is over 75%. At the same time, consolidate and perfect the network of eye care services, ensuring equal access among subjects (children, women, the elderly, people with disabilities).
About 3 million children have refractive errors
Dr. Nguyen Hoang Cuong, Central Eye Hospital, said that the development of modern ophthalmology technology helps to detect, diagnose and treat eye diseases more and more effectively, and at the same time shows that eye diseases are increasingly diverse and complex, especially eye diseases in children: refractive errors, amblyopia, congenital diseases: retinal tumors, strabismus, ptosis, congenital cataracts, premature retina, etc.
According to the assessment of the Central Eye Hospital, refractive errors (nearsightedness, farsightedness, astigmatism) are increasingly common among adolescents, with an incidence rate of about 15 - 20% in rural areas, 30 - 40% in cities. In the group of children aged 6 - 15 years old alone (the age group that needs priority for glasses), the whole country has about 15 million children. With a refractive error rate of about 20%, it is estimated that Vietnam has 3 million children with refractive errors that need glasses, of which up to 2/3 are nearsighted.
According to Dr. Nguyen Hoang Cuong, refractive errors cause difficulties in studying and living. Because they cannot see clearly, children also have difficulty understanding lessons and absorbing knowledge, which can lead to a decline in learning outcomes. If left untreated for a long time, it can cause lazy eye disease, vision loss, and difficulty in treatment. Examining and providing glasses for children with refractive errors is one of the lowest-cost but highly effective interventions to reduce the rate of blindness.
"Controlling the causes of blindness in children requires special attention to congenital cataracts, refractive errors, retinopathy of prematurity, and preclinical vitamin A deficiency," Dr. Nguyen Hoang Cuong added.
There are currently about 314 million blind and low vision people in the world, of which about 45 million are blind, with people over 50 years old accounting for 80%. Every 5 seconds, 1 person in the world becomes blind, and every 1 minute, 1 child becomes blind. 90% of blind people live in poor and developing countries with difficult access to health services (Vietnam is among these countries). 80% of the causes of blindness can be treated or prevented.
Source: https://thanhnien.vn/viet-nam-hien-co-khoang-2-trieu-nguoi-mu-va-thi-luc-kem-18524101220413385.htm
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