Supporting the government’s National Eye Donation Fortnight observed from 25th August to 8th September every year, ENTOD Pharmaceuticals is organizing a series of activities across the country to create awareness regarding the importance of eye donation and to motivate people to donate their eyes after death. The focus of the #pledgemyeyes initiative is to make every Indian consider it their duty to pledge their eyes and make a real difference. The company is collaborating with leading ophthalmologists from around the country to celebrate and promote voluntary non-remunerated eye donation by educating the public on the necessity of eye donation.
In India, nearly 68 lakh people have corneal blindness in at least one eye; out of these, 10 lakh are blind in both eyes. Each year, around 75,000 people with corneal blindness in the country miss out on the opportunity to regain vision. The reason is a shortage of donated corneas. Of the approximately one lakh patients with eye disease, only about 25,000 undergo corneal transplantation. The magnitude of the issue is of grave concern as out of 10 million people with blindness in India, over two million are affected by corneal blindness, and 60 per cent of them are below the age of 12. Only an eye donation from a deceased person can help restore the sight of a corneal blind person.
In addition to that, there are only 435 functional eye banks (EBs) and eye donation centres (EDCs) in India involved in the collection and distribution of donated eyes as per the National Programme for Control of Blindness (NPCB). This amounts to nearly 1 EB/EDC per 3 million populations. However, a majority of these are concentrated in urban regions.
Also, some of the states are lagging in terms of eye donations. Maharashtra, with 74 eye banks—20 per cent of India’s eye banks—has managed 23,311 eye donations from March 2015 to July 2018. During the period, Telangana (two eye banks, 27,725 grants), Tamil Nadu (38 eye banks, 37,898 donations) and Gujarat (29 eye banks, 26,759 donations) have achieved higher targets. Assam only had 158 eye collections in 2017-2018 compared to 1865 from West Bengal and 1263 from Orissa.
“The barriers to eye donation are mostly due to misinformation and apprehensions about the proper utilization of the donated tissue. We also recommend incorporating special lectures in schools and colleges on eye donation, educating the next generation through mass media and making eye donation a culture,” said Mr Nikkhil K Masurkar, CEO, ENTOD Pharmaceuticals.
“Corneal transplantation is, without doubt, the most successful of all organ transplant procedures, but it is dependent on people’s willingness to pledge their eyes for donation and close relatives to be keen to honour that pledge on the demise of the individual,” said Padmashree Prof. Dr S Natarajan, Founder of Aditya Jyot Eye Hospital.
For more information: https://www.pledgemyeyes.org/
