Preventable blindness on rise in Bangladesh

DHAKA, Bangladesh

Reazul Adedin, 63, who hails from a village in Bangladesh had been losing his vision for the last four years. After failing to diagnose his illness, the village doctor told him to go to the capital Dhaka.

In the absence of universal healthcare, Abedin feared the high cost of treatment. "When I finally managed to visit a doctor in Dhaka it was already too late. My left eye had lost 95% of its vision," he said.

Abedin suffers from glaucoma, the second major cause of blindness in the world. Its only prevention is early detection, experts said, on the occasion of World Glaucoma Week marked from March 6-12.

It costs about 25,000 Bangladeshi taka ($300) for initial eye screening, with surgery costing an additional 25,000 taka.

In a country where 20.5% of the population lives below the poverty line, according to the Asian Development Bank, this is a hefty sum.

Professor Dr. Zakia Sultana Shahid, an eye specialist, said 90% of patients in Bangladesh do not know they have developed glaucoma.

“It happens because glaucoma usually damages side eye vision in the initial stage, keeping the front eye vision active for a long period,” said Shahid, who also represents the Bangladesh Glaucoma Society (BGS), a nonprofit organization that spreads awareness about the disease.

"There is no government data to know how many glaucoma patients are there in Bangladesh and which type of glaucoma is on the lead. Therefore, we, BGS, have launched a mass screening -- reaching door to door to the remote villages to know the scenario.”

“There are only 87 glaucoma specialists in Bangladesh against the growing number of eye patients in a country of 165 million people," she added.

“The government should support easy procurement of cutting-edge technologies to support the costly treatment, and the country’s health budget should be increased,” she said.

Bangladesh's health budget is among the lowest in South Asia. Health care remains one of the highest out-of-pocket health expenditures in South Asia with 73.9%, according to the Asian Development Bank.

Bangladesh allocates less than 1% of its budget to the health sector.

Speaking about the state-run initiatives, Dr. ABM Khurshid Alam, who heads the country's Directorate General of Health Services, said the government runs a glaucoma screening program.

“We have been conducting so many other programs, including the gradual opening of community vision centers across the country to screen eye diseases with cutting edge technologies. If required, the vision centers in rural areas can contact specialists in Dhaka through telemedicine,” he added.