DW BUREAU / Chandigarh

With an aim to spread awareness among the public about the importance of eye donation and to motivate people to pledge their eyes for donation after death so as to address the critical shortage of corneas for transplantation, Punjab Health and Family Welfare Minister Dr Balbir Singh on Sunday launched 39th National Eye Donation Fortnight.

The Health Minister urged people to come forward to pledge their eyes for donation. "Eye donation is a noble cause as it can give a gift of vision to a blind person," he said.

The 39th National Eye Donation Fortnight will be observed from August 25 to September 8. The Health department will conduct intensified Information, Education and Communication (IEC) activities to educate the masses during this fortnight.

Dr Balbir Singh, who himself is an eye surgeon, informed that the corneal damage leads to blindness, which is known as corneal blindness.The cornea is a transparent layer in front of the iris. "It is the Cornea which is taken from the donor's eyes and is transplanted on to a corneal blind person, which enables the person to see the world," he said while adding that this surgical procedure is called Keratoplasty.

Underlining the importance of eye donation, the Health Minister said that our eyes are the pivotal sensory organs, as up to 80% of all sensory impressions are registered through our sight. Without the gift of sight it is challenging to lead a normal life. He also stated that Corneal blindness affects mainly children and young adults who have a long life ahead of them and that one eye donation can give sight to two corneal blind persons.

He said that around 11 lakh people are suffering from corneal blindness in India and 25,000 new cases are being added annually. But only 25000 corneal transplants are conducted every year in India. "We can see a huge gap in eye donations and number of corneal blind persons. Therefore we all need to come forward to fill this gap by pledging our eyes for donation and make our state and nation corneal blindness free, he said. He further added that though we have trained, highly qualified surgeons and hospital facilities to do the transplant we do not have enough eye tissues to do the surgery.

Punjab has a total of 10 registered eye banks and 27 corneal transplantation centres. A total of 940 Keratoplasty were conducted in Punjab in 2023-24, while, 275 such surgeries have been conducted successfully till July-2024.

Director Health and Family Welfare Dr Hitinder Kaur said that during this fortnight, various IEC activities are to be carried out across the state and detailed guidelines have already been issued to all the Civil Surgeons in this regard. Various myths and misconceptions associated with eye donation will be busted during this intensified awareness drive, she added.
(editor@dailyworld.in)