It is now imperative to make a concentrated effort to identify vulnerable populations with visual impairment, as numerous research studies have connected vision loss to cognitive decline in the elderly population in addition to highlighting the growing prevalence of eye conditions in the general population.
 
Although the previous government, the BRS government, had exclusive funding for large-scale eye screening programs, such as Kanti Velugu, the congress government has not yet developed a public health policy to address the high rate of visual impairment and identify populations that require surgical intervention. At present, the National Programme for Control of Blindness (NPCB), which is financed by the Central government, is the sole effort that is actively involved in identifying the visually impaired in the State.
 
Although representatives from Telangana's Directorate of Public health (DPH) and NPCB oversaw the previous two Kanti Velugu projects, this time around there hasn't been a specific budgetary allotment in the State budget for such projects. Senior health Department officials stated, "The State government has to come up with initiatives like mass eye screening program but we have not received any such directives or financial allocations."
 
The burden of eye ailments
According to a recent research by the L v Prasad Eye Institute (LVPEI), a city-based organisation with locations in adilabad and Mahabubnagar, the age- and gender-adjusted prevalence of visual impairment was 15% among 6,150 people in rural areas aged 40 and above.

The study, which was published in the british Medical Journal (BMJ), found that women were more likely than males to have visual impairment, with cataracts accounting for 55% of cases. Uncorrected refractive errors were shown to be the second most common cause of visual impairment (VI). High incidence of VI was found in a comparable population-based investigation by LVPEI, this time focused on school-age children (4 to 15 years) in Telangana. As to the findings of the research, 1.16 percent of the 7,74,184 youngsters who underwent screening had VIS.
 
An other recent study on the elderly by LVPEI found that older adults with vision loss were four times more likely than older adults without vision loss to experience cognitive impairment. Although cognitive impairment was present in fewer than 30% of older adults with modest visual impairment, the study found that this percentage gradually rises as vision impairment gets worse.
 
 
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Telangana

G GOWTHAM

05/08/2024 10:25 AM