The acting secretary, Health and Human Services Secretariat in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Mrs Alice Ode Achu has disclosed that about 1.13 million Nigerians are blind.
She made this disclosure yesterday at a result dissemination event for the five-year ‘Seeing is Believing Initiative of Standard Chartered Bank’ being implemented by Brien Holden Vision Institute within the FCT.
She said that according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), 285 million people are visually impaired globally while 39 million are blind. She said, “About 90 per cent of the world’s visually impaired people live in developing countries and uncorrected refractive errors are the leading cause of visual impairment and cataract is a leading a cause of blindness.
In Nigerian, 1.13 million are blind and twice this number is living with low vision.”
Achu explained that this statistics informed FCT’s decision to collaborate with Brien Holding Vision Institute and other stakeholders to ensure that there is an improvement to the vision care needs of the populace. The project saw the equipping of eye clinics at Kubwa and Bwari General Hospitals.
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