Lagos — As the world celebrates the World Sight Day , 29.25 million women have been reported blind globally according to statistics from the World Health Organisation (WHO).

"Out of the purported 45 million blind people worldwide, women account for about 65 percent, which is 29.25 million," Lagos State Commissioner for Health, Dr. Jide Idris said at a news conference to mark the day, adding that another 269 million people were visually impaired, while 85 percent of these people suffer from avoidable blindness that could either be prevented, or treated and cured.

The commissioner explained that a further breakdown of statistics shows that about 2/3 or 65 percent of the people are women, most of whom are the elderly who live in developing countries and are more often than not ignorant of the avoidable problems that led to their getting blind.

The theme of this year's World Sight Day: is Gender and Sight-Equal Access to Care, evolved as a result of the fact that more women are going blind worldwide and are prone to blindness due to ignorance.

"Most of these women are blind from correctable cataract disease. Cost of treatment is a significant primary barrier to the use of cataract surgical services. As a result, Lagos State is addressing this issue by offering the elderly free cataract surgical services in our hospitals. Blindness due to cataract alone, can be reduced by 11 percent if women were to receive cataract surgery at the same rate as men.

"As the world marks the World Sight Day, the need for all stakeholders to reach-out to women and girls in our communities with a view to counselling families to take informed decisions and ensure that the needs of women and girls are not neglected for cultural and economic reasons has been stressed.
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"Above all, adopting approaches to improve the use of eye care centres by women and girls will not only reduce gender inequity, as a Millennium Development Goal in blindness and vision loss, but will also have a significant benefit to the family, the community and to the society at large.

"Go out there and help women overcome blindness. Men should gear up towards removing the barriers that have been preventing women from accessing eye care centres in form of advice, encouragement, financial support among others, while women on their part, should endeavour to seek information about eye care services in order to know what to do about avoidable eye problems that usually lead to blindness."

Idris also disclosed that 2.8 million people were blind in the south-west zone of the country, adding that in Lagos State, the government had put a machinery in motion to curtail the rate at which people are going blind.