MORE than half of blindness cases recorded in Ghana are caused by cataracts, the Ghana Health Service (GHS) has disclosed.
Head of the Eye Care Unit at the GHS, Dr Hornametor Afake, said cataracts account for an estimated 140,000, representing 54.8 per cent of the nearly 254,000 Ghanaians who are completely blind in the country.
“These are conditions that are reversible with surgery, yet we are not treating them early, so we are losing many people to them. Early detection is what turns preventable blindness into preventable,” he said.
Dr Afake was speaking at the commemoration of this year’s World Sight Day on the global theme, “Love Your Eyes”, which calls on individuals and governments to prioritise eye health.
In Ghana, the day was marked on the theme, “Eye Care for All: Integrating Vision into Primary Health Care”.
According to Dr Afake, although cataracts remain the leading cause of blindness in the country, glaucoma and diseases affecting the back of the eye also contribute significantly to the national blindness burden.
“Glaucoma and posterior segment disease together add nearly a third more to the national blindness prevalence, followed by cornea opacity and other causes,” he said.
The head of eye care identified the unequal distribution of eye care professionals across the country as a major barrier to improving access to services.
He said more than 70 per cent of Ghana’s 168 ophthalmologists, 750 optometrists, 900 ophthalmic nurses and 800 opticians are concentrated in the Greater Accra and Ashanti regions, leaving four regions without a resident ophthalmologist and limiting access to specialist care.
Dr Afake encouraged Ghanaians to undergo regular eye checks to enable early detection and treatment of eye conditions before they cause severe and irreversible vision loss.
“Book a comprehensive eye exam, don’t wait for symptoms. Take a relative for cataract screening because it is reversible when detected early. Get glaucoma checked early; its vision loss can’t be reversed,” he urged.
Cataracts develop when the normally clear lens inside the eye becomes cloudy, causing blurred vision and, if left untreated, potentially leading to blindness.
The condition is treatable through surgery, which involves replacing the cloudy lens with an artificial one.
World Sight Day is an annual global awareness event that draws attention to vision impairment and blindness while encouraging individuals, communities and governments to take action to protect eye health.
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