The New Nation - Internet Edition

Entertainment Report

The World Sight Day is the annual day of awareness for blindness and visual impairment and is held on the second Thursday of October. Included in the official calendar of World Health Organisation (WHO), it is coordinated by the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB) under the Vision 2020 global initiative. Each year the World Sight Day (WSD) is celebrated on a particular theme and the theme of this year's WSD was eyes on the future: fighting vision impairment in later life because through out the world population are ageing and individuals are living longer and blindness from chronic conditions are also increasing.

In Bangladesh, 750,000 adults are blind and 90 per cent of these blind are more than 50 years of age. The main reasons of blindness among the elderly peoples are cataract, glaucoma and diabetic retinopathy. To create awareness among the mass people each year Orbis observed the day through series of remarkable events. This year also Orbis celebrated the WSD through events and discussion.

One of such event was organising a folk program at Rabindra Sarobar at Dhanmondi in the city on October 10. Three renowned folk teams from Mymensingh, Sherpur and Tangail performed in the program and disseminated eye health awareness message on the ageing eye problem specially cataract, glaucoma and diabetic retinopathy. The program was participated by around 3,000 audiences.

It is to mention that in Bangladesh 550,000 adult are suffering from cataract and every year another 110,000 cataract patients are added to this number. Other than cataract 5 per cent of total adult people in the country are suffering from diabetic and one out of every five diabetic patient is attacked by diabetic retinopathy which is a severe blinding condition in the eye where blood supply of the retina becomes fragile and later bleed chronically. If not treated at an early stage, near-to-total blindness is inevitable.