Paediatric Ophthalmology: Upcoming Speciality In Developing Countries – Challenges And Solutions

1. Pradeep Agarwal¹
2. Ashi Khurana²
3. Prateek Teotia³

1. C L Gupta Eye Institute, Moradabad, India

Purpose – To evaluate the availability of Paediatric Ophthalmology services in Developing Countries like India.

Methods – Various data from School screening programme of 3334 children below 15yrs of age in Western UP and other sources, including government officials, national and international non-governmental organizations (NGO) working in field of paediatric eye care in India was compiled. These data were compared with other paediatric eye screening programme and other studies.

Results – Among 3334 children screened 428 children (12.83%) had eye problem. Refractive error was found in 405 children (94.62%), corneal opacity in 16 children (3.73%), strabismus in 5 children (1.16%) and cataract in 2 children (0.46%). These data were similar with the other studies.

Conclusions – Developing countries have most of the burden of childhood blindness (1.3 million among 1.5 million blind child globally). Most of these childhood blindness can be preventable or curable by providing proper paediatric eye care services to these developing countries.