National Programme for Prevention of Blindness

National Programme for Prevention of Blindness:

The Government of India launched a mass programme for the prevention of blindness in November, 1976. Under this programme children between 1-5 years are being given an oral dose of 200,000 i.u. of vitamin A once in 6 months.

The National Trachoma Control Programme which was launched in 1963 for the control of blindness due to trachoma has been integrated with the national programme for prevention of blindness. The primary health centres, taluka and district hospitals are being strengthened to provide comprehensive eye health care services.

The ultimate goal of the national programme was to reduce blindness in the country from 1.4 per cent to 0.3 per cent by the year 2000 AD.

A National Institute of Ophthalmology has been created at New Delhi (Dr. Rajendra Prasad Centre for Ophthalmic Sciences) to monitor and guide the Programme. To train ophthalmic assistants, 37 training schools have been established. Each PHC and district hospital is to be provided with one ophthalmic assistant.

There are approximately 12 million cases of blindness in the country. It has been estimated that there is an annual incidence of 2 million cataract induced blindness in India. At the rate of 1.6 million cataract operations every year we are adding to the backlog.

Since cataract cases constitute about 80 per cent of the total blindness, targets have been laid down for each state for cataract operations. To strengthen the programme it was decided to establish District Blindness Control Societies (DBCS) under the chairmanship of the District Collector.

So far 456 DBCSs have been established. DANIDA had taken up 5 pilot districts for implementation of the programme through the formatlon of DBCSs. Later on the entire state of Karnataka was taken up by DANIDA for replication of the model developed in the pilot areas.

The voluntary organizations such as Lions International and its branches, Rotary International and its branches, NSPB India etc. are encouraged to organize eye-camps for cataract surgery in remote rural and urban areas as per guidelines with the permission from the state authorities. They have been active in providing eye health education, preventive, rehabilitative and surgical services for control of blindness.