World Glaucoma Week celebrated

Rawalpindi
A seminar to raise awareness about the sight threatening eye disease - ‘Glaucoma’ — was held at Al-Shifa Eye Trust Hospital (ASETH) with support from The Fred Hollows Foundation.
Around 100 ophthalmologists, doctors and other health care workers attended the event. The seminar was organised in relation to ‘World Glaucoma Week’ which is celebrated around the world in the second week of March to raise awareness about the disease.
Different speakers and presenters included Prof. Nasir Saeed, Dean PICO and President Pakistan Glaucoma Association, Prof Dr. Farah Akhtar Head of the Glaucoma Department ASETH, Dr. Mehmood Assistant Professor Glaucoma Department ASETH, Prof. Soorath Noorani Peads Department ASETH, Dr. Saima Jabeen Registrar Glaucoma Department, Dr. Shama Khan Senior Registrar ASETH, Dr.Zahid Butt Department of Public Health ASETH and Mustafa Khan Project Officer The Fred Hollows Foundation. Prof. Wajid Ali, Dean Pakistan Institute for Ophthalmology ASETH thanked the participants and presenters for their attendance. He especially thanked The Fred Hollows Foundation for their valuable support to the institute.
Mr. Mustafa Khan from FHF praised ASETH as a role model in eye care in the country and as a key partner in the common fight against avoidable blindness. The seminar followed a three days ‘Glaucoma training workshop’ conducted from 10th to 12th March at ASETH also sponsored by the Fred Hollows Foundation. Ophthalmologists from 11 Districts across Pakistan participated in the theory / practical training workshop and were trained in primary diagnosis and management of Glaucoma.
It is important to note that Glaucoma is the second leading cause of blindness globally after Cataract, responsible for around 12.3% of blindness worldwide. There are an estimated 60 million people worldwide with glaucoma and an estimated 8.4 million people
who are blind from this disease. These numbers are expected to increase to 80 million and 11.2 million respectively by the year 2020. Majority of people affected from glaucoma in developing countries are unaware that they have the disease and visual impairment.
According to an estimate nearly 50-90% of true glaucoma patients remain undiagnosed (the rate of undiagnosed glaucoma cases in developing countries is 90% in contrast to 40-60% in developed countries). Nearly half of the patients diagnosed as having glaucoma had already visited an ophthalmologist and remained undiagnosed.
Asians constitute the largest population group affected representing 47% of the total people with all types of glaucoma and 87% of primary angle-closure glaucoma. Glaucoma as a blinding eye disease presents serious challenges in Pakistan. The results from the two blindness surveys reveal that the prevalence of glaucoma as a cause of blindness has effectively doubled from 3.9% to 7.1% in all causes of blindness. Recent guidelines on public health control of glaucoma published by the WHO emphasizes the need to strengthen subspecialty services for glaucoma at selected tertiary care centers and build capacities for its management.
Early detection of glaucoma has a major role in management of glaucoma as it causes irreversible blindness therefore early treatment can stop/slow the progression of disease.
Limited diagnostic capacities to identify glaucoma at the early stages can cause irreversible vision loss to the affected people.