Of the 37 million people across the globe who are blind, over 15 million are from India. What's worse, 75% of these are cases of avoidable blindness, thanks to the country's acute shortage of medical treatment and donated eyes for the treatment of corneal blindness. Meanwhile, shortage of donated eyes is becoming a huge problem. Of the 15 million blind people in India, three million, 26% of whom a
re children, suffer due to corneal disorders. But only 10,000 corneal transplants are being done every year due to the shortage of donated eyes. The causes of blindness, many are curable if proper detection is done in time and added that while cataract was the most common cause, Refractive error is also another most common cause of visual impairment and affects nearly 25 per cent of general population. For India, it is vital that eyecare professionals focus on surgeries and take charge of primary eye care refractive errors like presbyopia, contact lenses, low-vision aids and vision therapies. This is how most developed countries managed to control and eliminate avoidable blindness. In India 153 million people in the country require reading glasses but do not have access to them. Optometrists are eye physicians concerned with vision care, eye diseases and prescribe eyeglasses, contact lenses and medications to treat eye disorders. The main objective of Kenia Foundation is to utilize its manpower and available resources for reducing the burden of blindness in the community, where childhood blindness and diabetic retinopathy have been identified as two key priorities for intervention.
