Chhattisgarh’s Health Department is conducting a cataract elimination drive. In just two months, vision has been restored to 12,700 patients across the state.
The Chhattisgarh government has set a target to eliminate cataract from the state by 2025, an official communication said on Thursday.
Dr Subash Mishra, Director of the Blindness Elimination Committee, said in a statement that the drive also provided vision to 53 children who had cataract since birth.
“A cataract is a cloudy area in the lens of the eye that decreases vision. Cataract often develops slowly and can affect one or both eyes," he said.
Symptoms may include faded colors, blurry or double vision, halos around light, trouble with bright lights and trouble seeing at night.
This may result in trouble while driving, reading or recognizing faces. Poor vision caused by cataract may led to falling and depression, Shukla said.
Cataracts cause half of all cases of blindness and 33 percent of visual impairment worldwide, he said.
