New Delhi, May 2 (PTI): The Central government will hold a special campaign starting June 1 to clear the backlog of over 1.02 crore cataract surgeries created in the past two years on account of the Covid pandemic in the country.
The Union health ministry aims to clear the pile-up over the next three years, official sources said on Monday.
According to an estimation based on national survey, the number of surgeries required to clear backlog of blindness due to cataract is 49 lakh while surgeries required to clear backlog of severe visual impairment due to cataract is 53.63 lakh, they said.
Besides, the number of surgeries required to clear backlog from blindness and severe visual impairment is approximately 1.03 crore.
"The backlog was created due to the Covid pandemic situation in the country. The total of above three categories of patients will be 2.05 crore over the next three financial years," the official source said.
The ministry has proposed to increase the number of cataract surgeries to be carried progressively across the country in the financial year 2022-23 to 75 lakh, 90 lakh in 2023-24 and 1.05 crore in 2024-25: amounting to a total of 2.70 crore of surgeries in the next three years. To this end, funds shall be provided to the states under the National Health Mission (NHM) programme, the sources said.
In the financial year 2017-18, 64 lakh cataract surgeries were performed while in 2018-19, 66 lakh and in 2019-20, 64 lakh cataract surgeries were performed.
During the Covid period, in 2020-21, 36 lakh cataract surgeries were performed in the country while 57 lakh such surgeries were conducted in the 2021-22 fiscal, according to official data. The National Programme for Control of Blindness, started in 1963, was renamed the National Programme for Control of Blindness and Visual Impairment in 2017. The goal of the programme is to reduce the prevalence of blindness to 0.25% by 2025 from 1.4% in 2010.
Disclaimer: This story is auto-generated from news agency feeds and has not been edited by The Morung Express.
Source: PTI
