A Consultant Ophthalmologist with Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Osogbo, Dr. Josephine Ubah, has said that cataract infection accounts for 43 per cent of blindness in Nigeria.
Ubah stated this when she delivered a lecture entitled “Cataract blindness: Reaching the unreached” at the fifth annual scientific conference of Ophthalmological Society of Nigeria, held in Osogbo.
A statement by the Head, Public Relations Unit, LAUTECH, Mr. Ayo Adeyemo, on Thursday, quoted Ubah as saying that out of the 1.3 million blind Nigerians, over 400,000 suffer from cataract infection.
Uba said, “Cataract remains the leading cause of blindness and, unlike some infectious causes of blindness, cataract blindness cannot be eliminated. However, it is treatable and a lot of innovations and new technology are now used to give patients good visual outcome.”
Declaring the conference open, the Commissioner for Health, Dr. Temitope Ilori, said the government was working to check the incidence of blindness.
She recalled that over 4,000 people had benefitted from the state’s free cataract surgery, while 5,000 people had also benefitted from the free eye glasses distributed by the Rauf Aregbesola administration.
In his address, the Chief Medical Director, LAUTECH, Professor Femi Fadiora, commended OSN for the awareness created on the causes of blindness.