6 Million people are waiting for eye donation
Every 5 seconds someone goes blind
50 percent of children who become blind die within two years
90 percent of children who are blind don’t go to school
In a country which is home to every sixth person on the planet and is still developing, the share of diseases and illness also tends to get higher. The problem is aggravated due to policy paralysis and limited funding from the government’s end.
An estimated 6 million people are suffering from corneal blindness and a huge gap remains between supply and demand of eyes; supply being less then 10 percent of the demand. Amidst such situation, awareness of masses regarding the blindness and eye donation becomes prerequisite of a healthy society.
Lets make it habit, donate EYEs. There is lots of problems in terms of corneal blindness in India. By getting cornea transplanted a blind person can get his eye-sight back. The process of transplanted means, getting the cornea from a deceased person and later transplanting the same to a blind person. The success rate of this transplantation process is 50%. Which means if we want to give eye sight to one lakh people we will require nearly 2 lakh cornea. Last year 50 thousand cornea were donated and around 20 thousand operations took place in entire India. The figures are far too less in terms of seeing the long queue of the blind people. There is shortage of cornea in our country and in such condition, a blind person sometimes wait entire life for getting the cornea.
Eye donation is only done after death and at that moment the body is not alive. The operation is very critical and the eye-lid are closed. Only the cornea is taken out from the body not the eyes. In India its not important for a person to sign the eye donation form while he/she is alive but their close relatives can also fill and sign the form. People can inform their close relatives while they are alive that they want to donate their eyes. Follow the link to learn more about eye donation.
