No fewer than 3.15 million Nigerian children are visually impaired, a medical officer at Eleta Eye Institute, Ibadan, Francis Arogundari, has revealed.
Arogundari disclosed this on Thursday in Ibadan, during Seeing is Believing (SIB), a sensitisation programme on “Comprehensive Child Eye Health for Media Practitioners and Correspondents from Oyo and Ogun States,” to prevent blindness and visual impairment organised by CBM in conjunction with Federal Ministry of Health.
According to him, the phenomenon is a threat to the country and “everyone should be doing something on it urgently.”
The Cluster Coordinator, SIB /Christoffen Blinden Mission (CBM), Clement Obayi, said studies in Nigeria show that many of the leading causes of blindness in children are preventable and treatable, adding that there is urgent need for specific interventions to reach out of school children.
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He said, the aim of the training is to contribute to the reduction of avoidable blindness and visual impairments through the provision of quality child eye health services to children aged 0-14 while also focusing on all components of child eye health, such as promotion, prevention, curative and rehabilitation.
Reeling out the efforts of the SIB/CBM in tackling the issue of eyes health of the children, Obayi said that, atleast, “445 eye care specialists; 14,105 teachers and community structures have been trained and over 1.5 million children screened; 2,388 health care workers have also been trained at primary health centres in both Oyo and Ogun states.”
About “27,500 spectacles have been provided, 2,150 low vision devices provided; 3,460 surgeries conducted and almost 17 million reached with child eye health information through the media,” he said, stressing the need for favourable child eye health policies and programmes to be incorporated into government plans and implementation frameworks.
In a lecture on “the roles of the media on child eye care”, the Chairperson, National Association of Women Journalists (NAWOJ), Oyo state, Jadesola Ajibola, called for the intervention of the media through sensitisation to reduce sudden blindness and visual impairment among children.
Ajibola also charged journalists to educate the public, especially parents, on the need to advocate for children suffering impairment and talk about the way forward.
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