The Ministry of Public Health (MoPH), in collaboration with the Ministry of Education and Higher Education, has implemented the school eye health programme in all government and private schools. In this connection, the MoPH recently organised a workshop on low vision screening for school nurses in collaboration with its partners.
The workshop targeted 133 new nurses.
During the workshop, the Blindness Prevention Programme team of the MoPH delivered lectures on common eye diseases and eye trauma and also provided practical training to all participants on how to perform accurate visual acuity measurement and fill the electronic screening forms, the MoPH said in a statement.
Dr Kholood al-Mutawa, head of the non-communicable disease section at the MoPH, stressed the importance of early detection of low vision cases in children and the referral of such cases to health centres. "Eventually, we could decrease the prevalence of low vision and lazy eye complications within this important age group," the official said.
Dr al-Mutawa also noted that Qatar has implemented the mandatory visual acuity screening early at all government and private schools. Data from the last vision screening survey (2018-2019), which involved 113,946 students, showed that 14% of government school students and 24% of private school students have low vision, less than the normal average of 6/6 vision.
Related Story