Childhood blindness – A Traumatic but preventable Threat!

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India is leading when it comes to the number of blind children cases and over 20% of the world’s blind population is from India.

The first week of April is celebrated as “The Prevention of Blindness Week” every year. And, this year the theme is “Nutritional Blindness among Children and its Remedies”.

Out of 10,000 children born in India, 7 of them suffer from eye related diseases because of nutritional deficiencies. According to the estimate of the National Society for the Prevention of Blindness (NSPB) in India, insufficient nutrition is the cause of 1.2 crore children turning blind across the world.


Vitamin A Deficiency (VAD) is the major cause behind nutritional blindness among children in India and the figure is 52,500 per year (According to a report “Prevalence of Vitamin A Deficiency is a Greater Concern in Children in India” published by Juniper Publisher on Feb 06, 2018). Every year, around half million new cases of childhood blindness comes up across the world even though many of the blinding disorders affecting children are either curable or preventable.

According to a report of National Programme for Control of Blindness, out of 400 million children in India, 680000 are blind including 226, 440 with easily treatable refractive error. The corneal blindness that occurs mainly due to VAD ranges from 10 to 20% and 20‐40% of one eye blindness is due to Ocular trauma (a physical or chemical wound to the eye or eye socket).

There are several factors that can lead to childhood blindness like-

  • Hereditary during conception
  • Retinoblastoma, Retinal dystrophies and Familial cataract
  • Toxoplasmosis and Rubella for factors during birth.
  • Newborn conjunctivitis and Retinopathy of prematurity.
  • Eye infections, Vitamin A deficiency, Traditional eye medicines, Injuries and Measles.

Increasing VAD is possibly due to maternal VAD, reduced breast feeding and also because of poor weaning practices. Lack of awareness and information regarding adequate food requirements also causes VAD among preschool children. The mothers should be encouraged more to breastfeed infants. The pregnant mothers, lactating women need to increase their intake of dark green and yellow leafy vegetables and fruits which are rich in Vitamin A. The parents should ensure that preschool children intakes enough Vitamin A rich foods like fortified milk, eggs, cream, cheese, fish oil etc.

The cost effective prevention measure to alleviate childhood blindness is vaccination against rubella and measles.  Xerophthalmia (pathologic dryness of the conjunctiva and cornea) can be controlled in children by providing adequate health knowledge and good nutrition. The several reasons of corneal scarring among children can be prevented if some primary healthcare are followed-

  1. Proper maternal and child health care
  2. Clean water supplies and good sanitation
  3. Good nutrition
  4. Essential drugs are made easily available
  5. Immunization
  6. Proper Health Education
  7. Control of endemic diseases
  8. Treatment of common eye conditions
  9. Improved hygiene and care
  10.  Better use of local health resources

The occurrence of eye problems cannot be predicted. Eye conditions and diseases can happen any time so proper care and preventive measure is the best solution. The parents should not ignore if the child complains about any minor eye issue. Immediate medical attention can avoid the upcoming serious eye problem. They should also avail the free medical camp organized at schools or at their locality by government or non-government organizations.

Along with all preventive measures, additional dietary supplement can also lower the risk of childhood blindness. Let’s be more careful about child and mother’s nutrition before the ‘childhood blindness’ becomes epidemic in India. The little ones should not be deprived of exploring this beautiful world through their eyes.  

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