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Treatment at primary level
can help prevent blindness

DUBAI - A health programme to screen and treat simple eye diseases at the primary level will aid early diagnosis and help prevent blindness in the country, officials said.

An eye-care programme being implemented at the primary care level under the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) Vision 2020 will assess the actual scale of the problem in the country, a senior official said on Monday.

“Integration of these services within the primary care settings will mean that patients will no longer have to go to hospitals for every simple eye problem,” explained Dr Manal Taryam, Medical Director of the Noor Dubai International Foundation that organised a two-day workshop in Dubai. “They can be screened and treated at the primary healthcare clinics.”

She also said the programme would also benefit patients with debilitating diseases such as diabetes that also affect vision. “Physicians in charge of screenings will be able to diagnose patients (of diabetes) who may not show symptoms otherwise,” she added. The programme has already been fully implemented in Dubai by the Dubai Health Authority with seven eye care clinics held per week, said Dr Manal, adding that the health ministry may also have similar plans. WHO’s Vision 2020, is an international initiative aiming to eliminate preventable blindness by 2020. The workshop aims at the full integration of eye health care services in primary healthcare as well as health funds.

According to WHO officials, the integration will have great impact on health care customers through a comprehensive coverage of services, and on health systems themselves. “We have increasing evidences that the prevalence of eye disease is really high, and that they can be addressed through an integrated primary health care approach,” said Dr H Al Gezairy, Regional Director, WHO, in a statement while talking about the region. He added: “Many policy makers may not realise the benefit of integrating eye health in the Primary Health Care and health systems.”

It has been noted that early detection of many eye diseases such as cataract, trachoma and children blindness, and their treatment within PHC could decrease the magnitude of this problem.

According to an updated WHO estimation, almost 37 million people in the eastern Mediterranean region suffer from vision impairments, due to eye diseases or uncorrected reflective errors.

Among these 37 million, 5.3 million suffer from blindness, 90 per cent of them in low income countries.

asmaalizain@khaleejtimes.com