World Sight Day today

With an estimated population of over 1.7 million visually impaired people, the 'World Sight Day' is being observed in the country like other parts of the world on October 14 with a renewed pledge to undertake all out effort to make visually impaired people useful citizens of the society.
In the backdrop of increasing number of blinds in the country, the World Health Organisation (WHO) under its blindness control strategy has already launched "Vision 2020 - the Right to Sight".
The WHO-sponsored programme has been made an integral part of the National Prevention of Blindness Plan.
Pakistan falls into the World Health Organisation's most severe category, with over 01percent blinds of the total population.
Among these, most of them are blind because they were unable to access the treatments which could have prevented or cured their loss of sight', said renowned ophthalmologist and assistant professor Ophthalmology, Sir Gangaram Hospital, Dr Huma Kayani, while talking to Business Recorder here Thursday.
Dr Huma maintained that cataract was the most common cause of blindness in Pakistan and would remain the major thrust of 'Vision 2020 Pakistan' aiming to increase the current cataract surgical rate.
"Prevalence of blindness is high in the country. There are estimated 1800 ophthalmologists, which means one ophthalmologist for just around 75,000-80,000 people. However, the situation becomes more complex when we consider that more than 80percent of ophthalmologists practice in urban areas which constitute only 25-30percent of the country's population," she added.
Dr Huma Kayani said that was a need for integrated efforts by bringing all stakeholders on board for the prevention of blindness, enabling the sharing of scarce resources and avoiding duplication and fragmentation of efforts.
"It was also necessary to devise cost-effective intervention mechanisms for running blindness prevention and cure programmes along sustainable lines", she said.
She also underscored the need for more interaction among stake-holders enabling to pool their resources, develop a shared vision and march ahead to benefit the local poor ophthalmic patients.
She also suggested that planning, monitoring and implementation should be devolved to provincial and district levels for prevention of blindness.
According to Dr Huma Kayani, blindness virtually incapacitates a person and results in millions of Disability Affected Life Years (DALYs) globally, yet the greater part of the problem is preventable at a very low cost.
She said that steps must be taken to provide services of cataract surgery at the doorsteps of the masses particularly for those residing in far-flung areas.