More than 250,000 children with visual impairment in Akwa Ibom are to benefit from free eye care services supported by Seeing Is Believing project (SIB), a Non Governmental Organisation (NGO) in conjunction with the state government.
Akwa Ibom State with a child population of about 2.4 million is estimated to have 480 blind children many of them remaining unidentified and unable to have access to eye care services.
According to experts nearly 60 percent causes of blindness in children are preventable and treatable with the leading cause being cataract, cornea scaring resulting from trachoma, measles, Vitamin A deficiency, eye injuries, neonatal infection and harmful traditional practices and glaucoma.
Anne Ebri, of the Brien Holden Vision institute who made this known during the lunch of child eye unit in the department of Ophthalmology, University of Uyo, identified uncorrected refractive error as the leading cause of visual impairment affecting 5-8 % of school going children in the country.
Ebri said poverty and unawareness were reasons for the pattern of diseases saying that majority of the population live below the poverty line and have limited access to eye health education or prompt attention explaining that the use of traditional eye medication all constituted major risk factors.
According to her, other barriers include cost of services, distance technology and limited personnel and skills.
Ebri who is the coordinator of Seeing Is Believing (SIB) project which is supported by Standard Chartered Bank, Bien Holden Vision Institute working in collaboration with Akwa Ibom government is providing the enabling environment using the Public Private Partnership model to contribute to reduction of prevalence of child blindness and visual impairment in Akwa Ibom State.
According to her, the project which started in 2017 has so far set up 2 out of 4 child eye units in the state that are safe and child friendly and equipped to provide quality care in selected hospitals in the state.
“Hundred thousand out of 250,000 children have been reached through eye activities and growing number have received eye treatment including spectacles and low vision devices and surgeries at no cost to parents,’’ he said.
She said the project would support the cost of the paediatric eye care services for children aged 0-14 years excluding major surgeries in at the University of Uyo teaching hospital while provisions have been made for children requiring major surgeries access care at the University of Calabar Teaching hospital in Calabar.
‘It is our hope that this eye child unit – our contributions will continue to provide quality care to the teeming numbers of children who require your services and we will continue to provide the support we promised in the Memorandum of Understanding throughout the duration of the project,’’ she said.
In his remarks, Dominic Ukpong, commissioner for health lauded Brien Holden vision institute for the project and expressed the hope that by the time the project comes to an end in December 2019, a lot would have been achieved when 250,000 would have been attended to.
Ukpong urged the management of the unit at the UUTH to maintain the equipment and use it for the services it was so donated for sustainability sake.
He said governor Udom Emmanuel in his kindness decided to donate one out of the four centres the state was entitled to, to the University of Uyo teaching hospital and urged the management of the institution to reciprocate the kind gesture.
