2016 World Sight Day: Stakeholders urged to raise awareness on blindness

Stakeholders in the health sector of the country have been urged to whip up interest and raise public awareness on blindness and vision impairment which have become major threat to humans globally as Ghana joined the world to mark the 2016 World Sight Day.

They have also been tasked to influence government to fully participate in awareness creation on blindness, designate funds towards national blindness prevention programs as well as educate target audiences about blindness and vision 2020 and generate support for it programme activities.

The Acting Head of Eye Care Unit of the Ghana Health Service, Dr. James Addy made the call at a press briefing in Accra on Thursday October 13, 2016, to commemorate this year’s World Sight Day. 

The move seeks to reiterate calls  for action on part of all Ghanaians towards achieving the goal of global action plan which seeks to eradicate blindness and visual impairment in the world which began from 2014 to  2019.

The theme for the 2016 World Sight Day is “Universal Eye Health Care” which was chosen for the celebration since 2014 and is set to last until 2019 when it is believed the goal would’ve been achieved.

The call to action for this year’s campaign message is # “Stronger Together” which strongly urges countries to focus on all stakeholders who are important for the successful delivery of eye care.

Briefing Journalists at the conference, Dr. James Addy appealed to media as well as all stakeholders in the health sector within the country to show keen interest in issues of blindness and visual impairment by creating public awareness to back the global call for action which seeks to eradicate blindness in the world by 2019.

“In order to create the needed awareness of the causes of blindness and visual impairment in Ghana, all stakeholders: #Stronger Together, must come together; eye care professionals, health managers, donor partners, media, family  diabetic community and disability groups , so that together we can reduce the burden of blindness and visual impairment in Ghana” Dr. Addy stressed.

Touching on this year’s theme which is “Universal Eye Health Care”, he explained seeks to ensure that all people have access to needed preventive, curative and rehabilitative eye health services, of sufficient quality to be effective, while also ensuring that people do not suffer financial hardship when paying for these services.

Blindness and visual impairment have been cited as a major threat to human life worldwide.  According to experts,   there are over 285 million people globally  who live with low vision and blindness out of which 39 million of these people are blind whiles 246 million have severe visual impairment and moderate visual impairment.  However in Ghana, over 190,000(prevalence of blindness was 0.74%) people are said to be blind in 2015, according to the Ghana Blindness Impairment study (GBIS).  The prevalence of blindness amongst those aged 50 years and above was 4.0% and increases with age to 19.12% in those aged 80 years and above.  There are indications that men were more affected than females. The study also reveals four out of five blind Ghanaians are blind from causes which could have been avoided such as cataract.  It said the major causes of blindness are untreated cataract (54.8%), Glaucoma (19.4%), posterior segment disease including diabetic retinopathy (12.9%) including corneal related causes (11.2%).

For his part Dr.  Ebenezer Appiah- Denkyira, Director General of Ghana Health Services (GHS) referred to  the major causes of  low vision as refractive error which has affected  almost  44.4%  of Ghanaians which he explained could be rectified by  wearing of medicated spectacles but observed unfortunately most Ghanaians  who are supposed to use spectacles to correct their vision do not wear them.  

He therefore called on all Ghanaians especially those who have encountered such problems to always make it a point to wear their spectacles regularly to stay away from getting blind. He also appealed to all those who are encountering any form of eye related problems to seek medical attention before it becomes too late.

WAY FORWARD

In order to have a very successful campaign leading to complete eradication of blindness in country by 2019 as measures of call to global action, The Ghana Health Service in partnership with the key stakeholders in the country will be undertaking the following activities in the coming months:

1.      Outreach services to underserved areas in the country.

2.      Cataract surgical outcome monitoring to ensure quality of our surgeries

3.      Diabetic Retinopathy screening of all clients at the diabetic clinics in Ghana

4.      Pediatric Ophthalmology in Teaching, Regional and District hospitals in Ghana.

World Sight Day is a global event which falls on the second Thursday in October every year. The day is set aside by the World Health Organization (WHO) and International Agency for Prevention of Blindness (IAPB) as an annual day of awareness creation where the world’s attention is focused on global blindness and visual impairment.

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