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Ghana faces a growing public health threat as cases of myopia continue to rise among children.
Otherwise known as near-sightedness, in which people can see close objects clearly but objects farther away appear blurred, the condition is estimated to affecting 115,200 children in Ghana currently.
This, according to the Country Director for non-governmental organisation, HCP Cure Blindness Project, Dr James Addy, was mainly as a result of modern lifestyle trends among children and reduced outdoor activities.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with the Ghanaian Times ahead of World Sight Day (WSD), Dr Addy said; “we are seeing a high increase in refractive errors for children and 0.9 per cent per 1,000 suffer myopia. The lifestyle changes for children these days is their increase in screen time from their phones, tablets, computers, and the television.”
“Because they have this increased screen time, they don’t get time to go outside the house, to go and play. You hardly see children playing football nowadays and this is affecting or changing the eyes of our children.”
Dr Addy, who is also the immediate past Director of Eye Care at the Ghana Health Service (GHS), noted that the condition was prevalent in urban areas than rural areas with implications going beyond health to affect the education and socio-economic potential of children in the medium to long term.
That, he said, posed grave threat to the country’s development if efforts are not strengthened to change the statusquo and generally improve eye health in Ghana which has an increasing visually impaired population of over 0.75 per cent (230,000).
“Once children develop myopia, it could lead to many complications. Children may have retinal detachments and that will virtually make them impaired in their vision and they can go blind,” he stated.
They can also develop glaucoma from the refractive errors and myopia, causing headaches, dry eyes, blurred vision that can affect their general health and performance in school.
So in the long run you will have children and adults who cannot see, whose educational level is reduced, whose economic potential is reduced, and who, more or less, would end up depending on government for whatever support that they need and that will also increase healthcare costs.”
The Country Director pointed out some signs that parents or caregivers could pick up as suggestive
of myopia including straining of a child’s eye, frequent rubbing or squinting the eye to see something right in-front and difficulty in focusing on distance objects.
He advised parents and caregivers to make it a habit to check the eye of their wards, at least once a year and control their interface with digital devices.
“I always suggest that around the child’s birthday, instead of the usual parties and gifts, parents can decide that at that age of three, four, five, all the way to the age of 16, 17, and 18, you go and check your child’s eye and that will give you a lot of information.
Instead of an increased screen time, let us buy our children some books to read which are less harmful to the eye, allow the children at least spend an hour outside to engage in an activity to exercise the eyes and ensure that the golden rule of 20:2 is developed; when you look at the screen between 15 and 20 minutes, get up and walk around for about two minutes,” he admonished.
Dr Addy, among others urged the government to consider placing eye glasses or spectacles on the national health insurance scheme (NHIS) while supporting the training and equitable distribution of eye care specialists to improve access to eye health services in the country.
“People keep going to the hospital for screening, eye checkup and yet the one thing that will solve the problem, spectacles, is quite expensive so policymakers should start thinking about putting spectacles, especially for children, under the NHIS package and that will be of great benefit,” he suggested.
Commemorated every second Thursday of October, this year’s WSD on the theme; ‘Love Your Eyes’ focuses on the unique needs of children’s vision and eye health, giving children everywhere the opportunity to love their eyes.
BY ABIGAIL ANNOH
