This article was published in The Citizen Newspaper, Tanzania on 13th October, 2023.
Visual impairments and sight problems have recorded higher numbers in our time than at any other time in history. This is greatly influenced by situations such as vision degeneration (age), nutrition, epidemics, diseases affecting the eyes and lifestyles.
For over 20 years, the annual World Sight Day, marked on 12th October this year, has been a tool for raising awareness of the wider nature of visual impairment, and prevention of sight problems and blindness for over 20 years.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) report titled ‘Blindness and Visual Impairments’ published on the 10th of this month attests that at least 2.2 billion people globally have vision impairments. From the year 1990, studies on the global burden of visual impairments substantiate that up to 2020, blindness increased by 50.6 per cent, and visual impairments by 91.7 per cent.
Globally, visual impairments are more widespread in women. Women account for about 55 per cent of the collective population of people with blindness, people who experience moderate and severe visual impairments, people with mild visual impairments, as well as people who have visual impairments due to uncorrected refractive error (presbyopia). (Review of Optometry Journal, ‘Visual Impairment Increases as Population Ages,’ 2021).
90% of vision loss is avoidable and correctable if attended early enough (IAPB Vision Atlas).
This is a pertinent concern for Tanzania because 90 per cent of global sight cases exist in low-income and lower-middle-income countries; Tanzania numbers among the latter.
8.2 million people in Tanzania have vision loss (central, peripheral, night blindness, blurry/hazy vision, general, myopia, and hypermetropia) and about 290,000 people are blind (Eye Care Foundation, Nov. 2022).
We cannot outrightly separate the rise in sight problems from poverty. With eye care being very expensive, a big burden is borne by poor people who pay from their pockets.
Equally, in situations where proper nutrition could be corrective, poverty denies some people a balanced and supplementary diet, hence escalating the existing problems by nutritional insufficiency.
Visual impairments and blindness can occur from birth, as in congenital blindness which could be inherited or a result of infection in the mother; but most times, they develop over time due to injuries, nutrition, and undiagnosed or chronic diseases. In extreme situations, impairments lead to blindness and sometimes death.
A meta-analysis conducted by The Lancet Global Health over 17 independent studies established that: ‘Those with more severe vision impairment had a higher risk of all-cause mortality compared to those that had normal vision and mild vision impairments.’ (Jordyn Imhoff, ‘Vision Impairment is Associated with Mortality,’ Michigan Medicine, 2021).
Local situation
Numerous people in Tanzania have visual problems. It is generally not a culture to go to the hospital for visual checkups when one is not ill. I was gravely embarrassed in Scotland when I could not tell the optometrists the date of my last eye check-up because I had had no check-up since birth.
This needs considerable advocacy, but concomitantly, such check-ups can be made affordable or even free, especially for children and the elderly. With no regular check-ups, problems are diagnosed when they have matured and are a threat to one’s well-being.
Ignorance of causes and triggers of eye problems makes people assume things like witchcraft or even curses to be causes of eye problems and blindness. To reverse these, there are records of people who have lost sight completely, caused permanent damage to themselves, or even endangered their lives because of putting concoctions assumed to be ‘medicine’ in their eyes.
The theme of World Sight Day this year is “Love Your Eyes at Work.” Locally, there are minimal or no health and safety checks or assurance at workplaces. There is no active enforcement of safe workplace environments. There is low and short-sighted awareness of eye health risks. Welders, bodabodas, miners, and industrial and farm workers, all often work without goggles despite being exposed for long hours to the sun, dust, chemicals and extreme environments.
Screens and Sight
‘Digital eye strain’ or ‘computer eye syndrome’ is a modern condition resulting from prolonged watching on TV screens, computers, tablets and phones. It can cause eye sores and dry eye syndrome. Looking at screens can damage retina cells as well as reduce the blinking rate sometimes up to one-third of the usual, leading to longer exposure of the eyes to air.
We ought to use screens within healthy limits, in bright environments. A computer screen can be kept at 25 to 40 inches away from the eyes, and the phone at 16 to 18 inches away. There is a common rule called the 20-20-20 rule for healthy eyes. It says, ‘For every 20 minutes on the screen, look at something 20 feet away for 20 seconds.’
