13, 626 pupils are visually impaired –Commissioner

[Mirror]

•17, 572 screened in one year At least 13, 626 pupils in Lagos State suffer from one eye problem or the other even as the state government has stepped up plan to mitigate cases of child preventive blindness and address issues of refractive error.

According the state government, out of the 17, 572 pupils screened across the state through its blindness prevention programme, over 13, 000 pupils have poor vision.

This, the state government said, could increase the poor academic performance of the pupils, if their eye problems are not timely addressed.

State Commissioner for Health, Dr Jide Idris, made this disclosure while briefing journalists on the efforts of the state government to address the growing rate of children with visual impairment.

He said a total of 1, 304 teachers had been trained on eye screening while about 501 schools in the state had been equipped with vision screening kits to carry out eye screening programmes for the pupils.

He said: "Poor vision and eye health significantly affect the capacity of children to learn and succeed academically. Not seeing clearly means being less able to learn as fast or as well as children with good vision leading to lower marks, demoralisation, social and emotional problems frequently accompany educational problem."

He added that the initiative recorded success as it has reached out to over 65, 587 pupils, adding that the scope of the programme had also been extended to include the training of teachers and the installation of vision corridor in all the schools.

To mitigate the problem, the commissioner said corrective eye glasses had been given to those whose eye problems could be checked with corrective glasses.

"The methodology we have adopted to reduce childhood blindness include: training of two teachers in each school; installation of vision corridor in each school complex; distribution of information education communication materials; referral of pupils with red eye or eye emergency condition to the nearest public secondary eye clinic within the catchment areas," he added.

National Mirror

[Folami David]

I hope that is corrected very soon because it's not supposed to be so. It's very sad things are that way in this country now.