News – CSF

Blindness and visual impairment is considered to be a critical social and health problem in Bangladesh. Many children were deprived of necessary treatment due to lack of awareness and financial incapability of their parents and stigma surrounding visual impairment. Families of blind children often do not have access to the specialized resources they need to improve the quality of life of their children. The majority of the eye care facilities and rehabilitation services are located in the urban areas of Dhaka and Chittagong despite the fact that 80 percent of country’s population live in rural areas. This presents significant problem for children who are financially or physically unable to travel from their areas to the country’s urban centres to receive the services they need. There are several cross-cutting factors—lack of information, lack of knowledge, proximity, economic constraint and illiteracy, wrong belief, wrong treatment and unscientific interventions-which contribute to childhood blindness in our country. There are other problems, including lack of skilled eye doctors and necessary medical equipment at the district level, which hampered the treatment of eye patients. Child Sight Foundation (CSF), a NGO working for combating visual impairment, said many causes of childhood blindness are either preventable or treatable. Cataract is completely treatable with cost effective and safe surgery if we can intervene timely. With basic cost effective medication, all of these common and preventable eye diseases are easily treatable. In the absence of treatment, however, many children face stigma within their communities and place a financial burden on their families due to medical costs and their inability to help in the home. According to a research conducted by the CSF and London-based International Center for Eye Health, 40,000 children in Bangladesh are visually impaired and out of them 12,000 children are impaired due to cataract. They can be socially rehabilitated by providing treatment and rehabilitation. About 285 million people are visually impaired worldwide. Among them, 39 million are blind and 246 million have low vision (severe or moderate visual impairment). In Bangladesh, 750,000 people are blind and, of them, 650,000 are due to cataract, said CSF. CSF, in their another study, found that about 10,000 children on per million population have more or less visual impairment. Most of these children can see only by using spectacle. Blindness in children is often preventable if communities and parents become aware of the causes. Without early intervention for cataract blindness children may go blind permanently. Blinding conditions increase child mortality – 50 per cent of children who become blind die within two years. Many people treat blindness as fate. They do not know that blindness in our country is largely treatable or preventable. Dr. MA Muhit, eminent eye specialist and also honorary Executive Director of CSF, said many people accept blindness as fate and most of them do not know that blindness in our country is largely treatable or preventable. This is why, raising awareness level is one of the key factors that can help reduce the intensity. He mentioned that over six million blind people need vision correction by spectacles and other means and approximately 150,000 are irreversible blind which need to be rehabilitated in the society. “About 80 percent blindness in our country can be preventable and avoidable if surgery is carried out on cataract patients and glasses are provided to people with low vision”, claimed renowned eye expert Dr. Muhit. Cataract can affect babies and children although most of us think it as a disease of the elderly. According to CSF, cataract may be developed in the eyes of children and it may gradually impair the visual power of children if it is not treated timely. Cataract is treatable disease and only a simple operation can restore the visual power of many children. Parents should go to physicians immediately for cataract operation. The cataract does not need to mature. If treatment is delayed there is a risk of amblyopia (partial blindness), leading to blindness. According to physicians, factors that may speed up cataract formation are: Diabetes, eye inflammation, eye injury, family history of cataracts, malnutrition, long-term use of corticosteroids (taken by mouth) or certain other medications, radiation exposure, smoking, surgery for another eye problem and too much exposure to ultraviolet light (sunlight). Many of us do not know that the treatments available for prevention and cure for blindness are one of the cheapest and most cost effective healthcare interventions, especially when measured against the cost in lost productivity lifelong that is associated with the loss of sight. There is good example of projects in different parts of Asian region, which needs to be shared, synthesised and documented so that more effective and large scale programme can be developed in Asian countries to tackle childhood cataract and to eliminate childhood blindness from this cause. In our society, visually impaired people are deprived of getting medical facilities and proper rehabilitation due superstition surrounding the disability. Mass media, which include television, radio, advertising, movies, the Internet, newspapers, magazines, and so forth, can reach a large audience and can bring positive change by making people aware of the visual impairment and dispelling stigma and misconception surrounding the disability. There is no other strong tool than mass media in shaping the people’s perception and brining a positive change regarding visual impairment and establishing the rights of the visually impaired people. Inter-personnel communication can also be utilised in launching the awareness raising activities. In a bid to raise awareness among people for combating visual impairment, CSF with the assistance of The Fred Hollows Foundation took up a programme involving journalists. As part of the initiative, journalists from both print and electronic media were involved in the activities and they published and broadcast reports on visual impairment through their respective media houses. Of them, six journalists—three from print and three others from electronic media—were awarded for their best reporting on the issue at a ceremony titled ‘CSF-The Fred Hollows Journalist Fellowship Award’ in the Dhaka city. Organized by CSF, the award giving ceremony ‘CSF-The Fred Hollows Journalist Fellowship Award-2013’ was held at MA Matin auditorium at the University of South Asia recently. Besides, the results of a research titled ‘Rapid Assessment Avoidable Blindness’ were published at the programme. Prof. AH Saidur Rahman, president of CSF, eminent ophthalmologist Prof. Dr MA Muhit, executive director of CSF, Dr. Zerin Khair, country manager of Fred Hollows Foundation, Golam Kibria, country director of Sight Savers International, among others, spoke at the function. Speaking on the occasion, speakers called for making health services for eye patients easily available across the country and raising awareness for preventing visual impairment and establishing the rights of the visually impaired people so that they can live with dignity. They underscored the role of mass media, saying that mass media should play an important role in achieving those objectives. They expect the journalists would continue support the issue of visual impairment with the objective of ensuring the rights of the visually impaired people in the country where everyone can live with dignity free from all kinds of discrimination and stigma.