India celebrates World Sight Day by educating people about Better Eye Care

By: Editorial Team | | Updated: March 5, 2016 8:33 pm

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On World Sight Day, Essilor, the world leader in ophthalmic optics, is launching a national campaign to conduct eye screenings in as many as 10,000 people including school children and traffic policemen, and educate them about the importance of eye health and need to be vigilant about it. With as many as 550 million Indians living with uncorrected vision, the country suffers major health and economic consequences of this seemingly minor concern. As per studies, the risk of failing a grade is more than 3 times for children who have visual acuity below 20/20 versus children with good visual acuity. Today 4 out of 10 children s performance in school suffers due to poor vision.In a study conducted among working men and women – wearing spectacles, increased productivity by 34% and 20% increase in income. However, lack of awareness and absence of easy access to corrective measures remain crucial factors responsible for this gap. (Read: World Sight Day How to keep your eyes healthy at all ages) Also Read - Retinal diseases often lead to blindness, but a new treatment shows promise

The Essilor initiative focuses on the simple step of getting your eyes tested and wearing spectacles, if needed, to correct vision. Another focus of the campaign is to inculcate the importance of getting an annual comprehensive eye exam, which helps in early detection of eye related issues like Glaucoma, Cataract and AMD (age related macular degeneration). The eye screenings will be conducted across the month at schools, IT parks and with Bangalore city traffic police personnel. (Read: World Sight Day: Prevent vision loss with proper eye care & food habits)

Nearly half of India s population needs vision correction. Based on findings, 70% of the reasons for uncorrected refractive errors are non-financial such as lack of awareness, avoidance and lack of priority. We want to bring focus to eye care and how vision correction can lead to change in every person life, said Mr. Shiv Kumar J, CEO, Essilor India.

Most of the time, vision correction is as simple as wearing a pair of corrective spectacles. Yet, 2.5 billion people across the world are living with uncorrected vision. This lack of vision correction has several repercussions from making people accident prone to reducing their productivity. As a world leader, Essilor considers it a responsibility to take vision correction to the last man, and we are working on it on multiple fronts through mobile screening vans in rural India to one on eye screenings supported by opticians in the urban towns. saidMr. Ramachandran P Group COO Essilor India. Also read natural remedies for better eyesight.

In India not many people consider it important to get their eyes tested. This campaign also wants to emphasize the importance of regular eye check-ups, much like the regular body health check-ups. Regular eye check-ups can detect eye problems such as cataract or glaucoma early on, and offer solutions. So this World sight day, get your eyes checked to get bet better vision for better life.

Photo source: Getty images

Published : October 8, 2015 3:28 pm | Updated:March 5, 2016 8:33 pm

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