480 people daily develop eye diseases in Pakistan

President Al-Shifa Trust Eye Hospitals, Lieutenant General (Retd) Hamid Javaid, on Thursday said that almost 480 people are developing eye problems in Pakistan every day.

Around fourteen thousand people are exposing to eye diseases every month which means that one Pakistani is catching disease every three minutes which is distressing the whole society, he said.

Speaking at a seminar in Rawalpindi, Hamid Javaid said that spike in eye diseases has now reached to the proportions of epidemic raising new challenges.

An insignificant number of victims have access to the affordable and quality health services which leaves some 175,200 per annum with permanent blindness.

This is one of the major reason Pakistan has over three million blind which has become a serious social issue, he said.

He informed that majority have curable blindness, 80 per cent of blindness is avoidable through prevention or treatment.

“So far we have provided eye-care facilities to six million people through four hospitals in Rawalpindi, Sukkur, Kohat, and Muzaffarabad but a lot needs to be done,” he said.

President Al-Shifa Trust Eye Hospitals said that the hospital every year provides training to one hundred paramedics, arranged specialisation for twenty doctors  and provided free treatment to half a million patients every year regardless of gender, race, colour or religion is our basic aim.

Blindness is one of the major health problems in Pakistan draining both its human and economic resources, said Hamid Javaid, adding that Pakistan needs more assistance to make medical treatment available to the many people suffering from optical diseases.

Short URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=40262

Posted by Tahir Khan on May 16 2013. Filed under Health, Latest News, National, Pakistan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.