By Leilanie G. Adriano
Staff Reporter
Laoag
City—In an effort to promote healthy eyes
and to prevent blindness, the Philippine Eye Research Institute (PERI) conducted
visual screening among Ilocos Norte children aged seven and below.
Dr. Leo Cubillan, PERI director,
said, “Childhood blindness can be prevented if only highly specialized services
that are needed to diagnose and treat it is readily available especially in
rural areas.”
A study of the University of
the Philippines Manila-National Institute of Health shows that every year,
about 531 Filipino children will go blind due to Retinopathy of Prematurity
(ROP), an important and emerging cause of childhood blindness in the
Philippines. If left untreated, ROP can cause variable degree of visual loss
and can lead to complications.
Aware of this situation, Rep.
Imelda R. Marcos (Ilocos Norte, 2nd district) invited PERI doctors
and nurses to visit Ilocos Norte and conduct vision screening training workshop
for Ilocos Norte nurses, particularly school nurses assigned in the province’s
second district to detect what is known as “lazy eye” or where one eye is not
functioning well.
The World Health Organization
(WHO) defines childhood blindness as a group of conditions occurring in
childhood, which could result in blindness of severe visual impairment, and are
unlikely to be untreatable later in life. It was caused by malaria, ophthalmia
neonatorum, vitamin A deficiency, ROP cataract, lack of facilities, and
malnutrition.
As one of PERI’s pilot
projects of in cooperation with the congressional office of Mrs. Marcos, a
training program will be institutionalized in the province to conduct outreach
program among Ilocos children seven years old and below.
Along with the actual visual
screening of entry children at the Mariano Marcos Memorial Elementary School
Grade I pupils, PERI led by Dr. Cubillan likewise donated at least 11 units of
vision screening kits for use in Mothering Centers located in the 11
municipalities and one city in Ilocos Norte’s second district.
Established in 1965 by of
Republic Act No. 4593, PERI, being the center for the advancement of
ophthalmology in the country was committed to reduce blindness through research
directed toward the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of eye diseases.
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