EMBRACE REGULAR EYES CHECKS, Ehanire Advises Nigerians On World Sight Day.

Dr. Osagie Ehanire.

"Availability of therapeutic options and the monitoring of responses means that blindness from these eye diseases and its negative impact on the quality of life and productivity of individuals, could be curbed".... Ehanire. 

With the global society celebrating the 2021 World Sight Day, which is an annual event and an initiative of the World Health Organization, WHO and the International Agency for Prevention of Blindness (IAPB), Nigeria's Minister for Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire has enjoined all to key into the programme by ensuring that they take good care of their eyes.

The theme of this year's programme, which is; "Love Your Eyes", according to the Honourable Minister, "is intended at drawing attention to eye health and sensitization of the populace on the need for regular eye checks".

Dr. Osagie Ehanire made this known on Thursday, 14th October, during a Ministerial briefing on 2021 World Sight Day.

According to the Minister, the theme for this year's World Sight Day, emphasizes the need for early diagnosis of eye diseases by eye health professionals.

This, he said, is because eyes availability of therapeutic options and the monitoring of responses means that blindness from these diseases and its negative impact on the quality of life and productivity of individuals could be curbed. 

"We are all aware of the pandemic of COVID-19, the role each person plays in loving his/her eyes cannot be overemphasized. This is because of the eyes as windows to the body, helps in transmission of the disease hence one of the non pharmacological control of the disease behooves on us to reduce the hand-eye contact". 

He noted that, "such opportunities like this, serves as a reminder for us all to reduce or break the transmission of the disease. Vision is important in socio-economic development of a people". 

"Nigeria, with other member states at the United Nations General Assembly recently adopted the vision for everyone; accelerating action to achieve the sustainable development goals resolution, aimed at committing the international community to eye health for the 1.1 billion people living with preventable sight loss by 2030", he stated.

"It thus enshrines eye health as part of the UN sustainable development goals. Before now as part of its commitment to preventing avoidable vision loss, the country developed the National Eye Health policy 2019; its first comprehensive national eye health policy, which was adopted by states and the Federal Capital Territory". 

Ehanire disclosed that,"it  provides a framework for collective direction to scale up eye care delivery at all levels of care, providing an interface for all stake holder to galvanize action for development in eye care and a sustainable approach to achieving equitable access to quality eye care and strengthen Nigeria’s health system towards Universal Health Coverage Evidence. He further noted that, this has shown that individuals with impaired vision have difficulty with performance of daily tasks, inability to fend for themselves thus, lowering their productivity and consequently reducing their contribution to economic growth of the nation.

He further stressed that, "making comprehensive eye care more accessible to majority of Nigerians has the potential to reduce the burden of blindness which would also lead to an increase in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and further enhance the economic growth of this great nation of ours".

The Federal Ministry of Health, according to the Honourable Minister, aims to achieve this through the integration of Primary Eye Care (PEC) into the Primary Health Care (PHC) in our health system in the country thus, reaching out to the underserved in the remote areas of this country.

"This would also help to improve accessibility of women and the elderly to eye care since they are the most affected", he said.

"In a country like ours with a prevalence of 0.78% for blindness and 84% of these blinding diseases are avoidable with possible causes like cataract, glaucoma refractive errors, uncorrected apahkia,  harmful traditional eye practices, corneal opacities and NTDs like trachoma and onchocerciasis, lack of awareness and inaccessibility of eye care services are possible reasons why many Nigerians still remain visually impaired as they still seek unorthodox eye care which leads to disastrous treatment outcomes. Primary Eye Care (PEC) which is an intergrated, participatory and inclusive eye health component of primary health care consisting of preventive, curative and rehabilitative services". 

"PEC, therefore empowers the people to participate in taking responsibility for their own eye health, preventing and treating conditions that may lead to visual loss, as well as rehabilitation of those who are already blind", he stated.

Speaking further, Dr. Ehanire disclosed that, "We believe that the integration of PEC into PHC will potentially change the pattern of eye care services in Nigeria to a level where the nationwide blindness prevention efforts would start from the grassroots instead of from the urban hospitals as is the case today".

"The WHO/AFRO in collaboration with IAPB developed the Primary Eye Care Training Manual (PECTM) for health personnel with no ophthalmic training working at the PHC facilities for adoption/adaptation by member states", he said.

According to him, "the ministry under my watch has domesticated this into the National Primary Eye Care Trainer and Trainee manuals through the collective input of stake holders". 

"We have gone further to train 12 master trainers (2 from each geopolitical zones) who would further train the resource persons for the states within their geopolitical zones. Currently, in the next few days, we are in the process of training primary health care workers in Kogi state and we wish to thank Sight Savers International for their efforts in this regard". 

"Furthermore, we have developed the data collection and reporting tools for PHCs. This we believe is necessary step further in the integration process which is aimed at strengthening the capacity of the non-ophthalmic Primary Health Care Workers (PHCWs) in Primary Healthcare Centres (PHCs) which are major access points for many Nigerians in the rural areas. This integration of PEC helps the PHCWs to manage simple eye conditions and improve the referral system between the 4 levels of healthcare –community, primary, secondary and tertiary levels.

The Honourable stressed that "the ministry believes that increasing the access to quality eye care services especially to the underserved in Nigeria, will help the country in achieving Sustainable Development Goals by improving the opportunities for Nigerians to attend to their educational needs, improve their productivity at work place, increase the overall quality of life and ultimately, an increase in the life expectancy of this nation hence, the reason for the commitment of human and material resources towards integrating PEC into PHC of this country.

Concluding his speech, Dr. Osagie Ehanire said; "you would agree with me that the theme for this year’s world sight day "love your eyes" would not have come at a better time than now as it would afford us the opportunity of loving the 400 million eyes of Nigerians, through the Primary Eye Care approach when fully integrated into the Primary Health Care system, thus bringing about a sustained economic growth and development to this nation and  making the country a better place for us all.

In his welcome address at the event, the Permanent Secretary in charge of the Federal Ministry of Health, commended all for attending the event, stressing that, these preventable blinding conditions can be reduced significantly through public awareness and ease of accessibility to eye care professionals thus encouraging early treatment of the diseases.

He disclosed that the ministry had taken this a priority, through steps aimed at integrating Primary Eye Care (PEC) into Primary Health Care (PHC) thus increasing accessibility to eye care and encouraging promotive and preventive eye health especially in the rural areas that the PHC serves.

He expressed his appreciation to the professional organizations, Sightsavers international and other donor agencies for supporting the Federal Ministry of Health to commemorate this year’s world sight day.

"I welcome you and encourage your active participation in the joint efforts to combat needless avoidable blindness thus reducing the burden of blindness in Nigeria", he said