BANDUNG, INDONESIA - A lack of knowledge about eye health is the main
reason behind the high blindness rate in Indonesia, a health
practitioner has said.
Many people,
according to Hikmat, did not know that cataracts could be treated
through surgery. Because of such reluctance to undergo operations, he
added, one person would go blind every minute in Indonesia from
cataracts.
The director of the Cicendo Eye Hospital
and National Eye Center, Hikmat Wangsaatmadja, said that Indonesia had
the highest number of blindness cases in the world, after Ethiopia.
"In fact, 80 per cent of blindness can be cured," Hikmat told the World Sight Day forum in Bandung, West Java, recently.
Hikmat, an ophthalmologist, said that most cases of blindness in Indonesia were caused by cataracts.
The
high occurrence of blindness in the country, according to Hikmat, could
be attributed to the fact that most people in Indonesia were reluctant
to undergo eye operations, especially for cataracts, which are a
clouding of the transparent lens of the eye.
Hikmat said that the incidence of cataracts in
Indonesia reached 240,000 annually, while the numberof cataract
operations performed in the nation numbered only 100,000.
Source: AsiaOne...More..
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