Foreign
BOTSWANA on Tuesday marked World Sight Day with the theme “Love Your Eyes” and officially launched the School Eye Health Screening and Treatment Project.
The project was launched in Kopong village, 25 kilometers north of Gaborone, Botswana’s capital.
Minister of Education and Skills Development, Douglas Letsholathebe, at the commemoration said “Botswana, like most developing countries, faces a problem of vision impairment, 80 per cent of which is preventable and can be avoided.’’
Letsholathebe stated that the most recent survey conducted in Botswana in 2014 found that blindness and vision impairment affected 5.2 per cent of those aged 50 and older, an increase of 1.5 per cent from the previous survey in 2006.
The leading causes of the vision problems in the 2006-2007 survey were uncorrected refractive errors, cataracts, glaucoma, and diabetes.
According to surveys, uncorrected refractive errors and cataracts are the leading causes in children aged 0 to 15 years.
The project, a collaboration between the Ministry of Education and Skills Development and Ministry of Health, began in the Kweneng District in July 2022.
The ministry said the project will equally reach the districts of Kgalagadi North, Kgalagadi South, Chobe, Kgatleng, and North East before concluding in 2025.
According to the ministry the goal of the project was to use the Portable Eye Examination Kit to identify children with eye conditions such as refractive errors.
Over 30,000 young students have been screened since July 2022. (Xinhua/NAN)
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Tags: Botswana World Sight Day
