Over 8.3 mn cataract surgeries performed in 5 months, says official

More than 83 lakh cataract surgeries have been performed in the country from January 17 this year till date under a special campaign to clear the backlog created during the Covid pandemic, officials said on Thursday.

This has led to the decline in the blindness cases caused due to cataract, they said.

Cataract surgeries were largely affected under the National Programme for Control of Blindness and Visual Impairment (NPCBVI) during the pandemic. Therefore, the Union health ministry planned a special campaign for the backlog and targeted to conduct at least 75 lakh cataract surgeries. All the states and UTs were directed to speed up the procedure of cataract surgeries, said a health ministry official.

"But we have surpassed the target as over 83 lakh cataract surgeries have been performed since January 17 till now," the official said.

According to the NPCBVI carried out from 2015-2019, the prevalence of blindness had declined to 0.36 per cent in 2019. Under the National Health Policy, the target is to reduce the prevalence of blindness to 0.25 per cent by 2025.

The NPCBVI survey (2015-2019) revealed that people above 50 years of age are having blindness with cataract being one of the primary reasons. According to this survey, in 2019 the blindness rate was 1 per cent which has further reduced to 0.36 per cent, said the official.

The Centre had launched the National Programme for Control of Blindness in 1976, a totally centrally funded scheme. The programme was further updated into the National Programme for Control of Blindness and Visual Impairment with fund sharing in 60:40 ratio between the Centre and state governments.