Prevention of Blindness Week is annually observed across India from 1st to 7th April to create awareness about the factors contributing to blindness and to highlight the importance of lifestyle choices and regular eye examinations to mitigate the risk of eye ailments.
Prevention of Blindness Week 2024 was observed from 1st to 7th April.
- The annual observance of the Prevention of Blindness Week is led by the National Society for the Prevention of Blindness(NSPB)-India.
Significance:
i.The observance aims to educate people on various eye injuries, visual impairments, effective preventive measures, treatment modalities, and potential cures.
ii.The leading causes of vision impairment and blindness include refractive errors; cataracts; diabetic retinopathy; and glaucoma.
Blindness:
i.Blindness is the inability to see or a lack of vision resulting from infections, accidents, genetic conditions and other diseases.
ii.Blindness can range from no vision at all to seeing shapes.
Efforts of the Government of India:
i.The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) implemented 3 Blindness Control programmes:
- National Trachoma Control Program -1963,
- National Program for Control of Blindness- 1976,
- National Program for Control of Blindness & Visual Impairment-2017.
ii.The government also implements the Mission Mode Cataract Surgery Campaign (Netra Jyoti Abhiyan) – 2022-25 under the Blindness Control program
iii.Bharati Braille Code: GoI has developed and implemented the ‘Bharati Braille Code’ for Indian languages, used across India to educate children with visual impairments.
Points to note:
i.According to the World Health Organisation(WHO), at least 2.2 billion people across the globe have near or distant vision impairment. In at least 1 billion of these, vision impairment could have been prevented or is yet to be addressed.
ii.According to the Census 2011 data, 2,68,14,994 Divyangjan (persons with disabilities) are there in India, of which 50,33,431 are persons with visual impairments.
About National Society for the Prevention of Blindness(NSPB)-India:
i.The NSPB-India was formed based on the resolution of the National Association for the Blind in 1959. It was registered on 24th August 1960 under the Societies Registration Act, 1860.
ii.Then health minister of India, Rajkumari Amrit Kaur was elected as the first President of NSPB.
iii.In 1962, then Prime Minister (PM) Jawaharlal Nehru was NSPB’s chief patron.
