Students need over 100,000 spectacles annually

by Carol Aloysius

The Health Ministry needs donors who could provide free spectacles for schoolchildren islandwide. "We need around 100,000 pairs of spectacles every year based on our reports from schools after inspections. The number could increase in the future", Vision 2020 Coordinator, Dr. Asela Abeydeera told the Sunday Observer. Although statistics were yet to be released, around 100,000-150,000 schoolchildren, three-fourths of the school population need spectacles. "Shortsightedness (myopia), the most common eye disorder they suffer from can be corrected with spectacles," he said. Vision 2020 Sri Lanka project had screened schoolchildren in over 16 districts in the past three years. "We have distributed over 50,000 pairs of free spectacles given to us by donors, most of which are one off donations. Hence, we need new donors to continue our project as the spectacles need to be replaced every 1-2 years", he said. At present Vision 2020 Sri Lanka was conducting training courses for school teachers to detect eye disorders in students using simple, easy to use tools such as cards. "After doing these tests, they submit the names of students needing spectacles. Thereafter, we send our team to conduct further investigations before providing the spectacles."

He said any child was eligible to receive free spectacles and parents could contact the nearest MOH to get their child tested.

Dr. Abeydeera said, although the target of World Vision 2020 is to screen all schoolchildren for eye disorders by the year 2020, he was confident that they could reach this target within the next two years." Therefore, we need more donors urgently", he said.