Institute conducts eye screening in Chiladzulu

Three weeks after screening children with eye problems in Ntcheu, the Blantyre Institute for Community Ophthalmology (Bico) on Saturday took the exercise to Montfort School for the Blind in Chiradzulu.

 

Bico director Dr Khumbo Kalua, an eye specialist at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital (Qech) in Blantyre, said the exercise is part of the institute’s national tour to reach out to rural communities with little access to eye care.

“There are Malawians in villages that are completely blind when they should have not. The problem is that they lack awareness to take their problems to hospital.

“So, we are not just screening the scale of their eye problems [but] we are also raising awareness to take their problems to the nearest health centres,” he said.

With a team from Verde Valley School in the United States (US), Bico screened 296 people with eye problems.  The 124 who were diagnosed with the problem of low vision were given reading glasses.