Poor eye sight causes 25% of serious, fatal accidents in Nigeria

As Nigeria joins the rest of the world to celebrate this year’s World Sight Day, Prof. Afekhide Omoti, the chairman of the National Eye Health Committee, stated that good vision was key to preventing road traffic crashes (RTC).

He said 20 percent of all traffic accidents and up to one-quarter of fatal and serious accidents were due to drivers with a diminished vigilance level.

Omoti stated this on Thursday during an awareness meeting with the Road Transport Employers Association of Nigeria (RTEAN) in commemoration of World Sight Day, with the theme: “Love Your Eyes” in Abuja,

He said the vision was key to achieving safety on roads hence the need for awareness to be created among key stakeholders of public transport, especially the drivers, whose primary responsibility was to convey their passengers safely to their destination.

On the government’s efforts at preventing avoidable vision loss, the physician said the country developed the National Eye Health Policy in 2019 which was adopted by states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

Omoti said the policy provided a framework for collective direction to scale up eye care delivery at all levels, providing an interface for all stakeholders to galvanise action for development in eye care and a sustainable approach to achieving equitable access to quality eye care and strengthening Nigeria’s health system towards Universal Health Coverage (UHC).

This, Omoti said, the Federal Ministry of Health aimed to achieve through the integration of Primary Eye Care (PEC) into the Primary Health Care (PHC) in the country’s health system, thus reaching out to the underserved in the remote areas of the country.

According to him, this would also help to improve the accessibility of women and the elderly to eye care as they are the most affected. (Health Digest)