New Delhi: A large number of donated eyes are going to waste across the country in government eye banks. It is because they are either infected with diseases, or because of delays in reaching the eye bank.
The data available with Dr Rajendra Prasad Centre of Ophthalmic Sciences at AIIMS reveal that the number of eye donations has gone up from 680 in 2009 to 1321 in 2013. But the number of unused eyes has increased in higher proportion, from 185 in 2009 to 400 in 2013.
A leading daily quoted Dr Shakti Kumar Gupta, Medical Superintendent at Dr. R.P. Centre AIIMS, as saying, “The delay occurs due to difficulty in convincing the family of the deceased. The eye has to be removed from a dead within six hours after the death and it can be implanted in the next 24 hours.”
“Every donated eye is checked for the quality of cornea and diseases if any. Tests for various diseases like HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis B and other STDs are done before implanting the eye in a blind a person,” he further added.
The eyes from old people often go to waste because the corneas are already blurred.
The authorities have been rooting in for a law that mandates eye donation to combat blindness in the country of 15 million blind people. The 75% of cases are of preventable blindness. Against the demand of 2,50,000 annually, only 25,000 corneas are collected for transplant in India.
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