Head of the Glaucoma Unit at the National Eye Centre, Kaduna, Dr Olusegun Olaniyi, has asserted that at least 10 million Nigerians are at risk of developing glaucoma in 2040.
Olaniyi said the estimate was based on the current surge of glaucoma cases, representing 5% of Nigeria’s population of over 200 million.
In a public lecture he delivered yesterday at the National Eye Centre, Kaduna, to mark this year’s Glaucoma Week with the theme “Uniting for a free Glaucoma World”, Olaniyi said, “At the rate at which it is going, by the year 2040, we may have as many as 110 million. But then, in Nigeria, there is a survey that has been done, the National Blindness and Visual Improvement Survey, which found that we have glaucoma in every part of the country, affecting every region.
“Because of that survey, they went around, and they found that glaucoma is present in every region. And then about five in every 100 adults aged 40 or older are affected. So that’s about 5%. You can do the maths and see what our population will be by 2040, and see what we estimated it to be,” he said.
“The reality is that the prevalence is increasing. We used to say before that glaucoma is the leading cause of irreversible blindness, but we want people to know that blindness from glaucoma is actually preventable,” Olaniyi said.
Earlier, the chief medical director of the National Eye Centre, Dr Amina Hassan Wali, said the centre has made deliberate efforts to raise awareness and lead a campaign against other forms of blindness.
Wali said the decentralisation of the National Eye Centre will bring eye care services to all the country’s geopolitical zones.
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