Today (Thursday) is World Sight Day. The day will be celebrated in Bangladesh like in other countries with the theme 'Love Your Eyes at Work'.
To mark the day, an awareness-raising procession will be taken out from the National Institute of Ophthalmology and Hospital at Agargaon in the capital at 11 am on Thursday. A seminar on this year's theme and 'Insight 2030' will be held at the institute’s auditorium at 12 noon, according to a press release.
World Sight Day is observed every year on the second Thursday of October. The main objective of the day is to make the world aware of blindness, visual impairment and eye care.
The International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB) has launched a year-long campaign ahead of this year's World Sight Day.
Besides Bangladesh’s Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and National Eye Care, eye care organizations Andheri Hilfe, BRAC, CBM Global, the Fred Hollows Foundation, Heart to Heart Foundation, Helen Keller International, Orbis International, Sightsavers, VisionSpring and EssilorLuxottica are organizing various awareness programs and providing special eye services at the national and district levels on the occasion of the day.
The eyes are an important organ of the human body, but most people are not aware of their disease and prevention.
The organizers hope that the main message of this year's theme will enhance awareness among the people of taking care of their eyes at the workplace.
According to information at NIOH, every day over 3,000 patients seek treatment for various eye problems from the institute alone. The institute data suggest about 14.3 million people in the country are suffering from vision problems and the number of eye patients is increasing day by day.
Health experts say children’s addiction to video games is leading to eye problems as well as mental problems among them.
According to the World Health Organization, about 2.2 billion people in the world suffer from blindness or visual impairment, of which one billion cases are preventable or curable.
To combat eye diseases, National Eye Care has so far taken a groundbreaking step by setting up 200 community eye care centers at upazila hospitals. Apart from this, various national and international organizations engaged in providing eye care are delivering services at the doorsteps of the people.
