Over 30, 000 children have eye diseases in Jigawa

About 30, 000 children below 14 years in primary and junior secondary schools ?are suffering from various eye diseases in Jigawa State.

An eye specialist and head of eye clinic at Rasheed Shekoni Specialist Hospital in Dutse, Dr Abdullahi Idris, who disclosed this during a roundtable meeting between the ministry of health officials, media and the team from the Health and Development Support Programme, said out of over six million people in Jigawa state about 2.4 million are children, adding that about 30,000 of these children have one eye disease or the other.

Idris said that out of the total figures, 20 percent are suffering from cataract, about 20 percent have Glaucoma, 20 percent suffer from scar, 10 percent ROP while about 30 percent are suffering from other common eye diseases.


According to him, the major causes of child eye diseases ?include lack of vitamin A which take 60 percent, measles, trauma, Keratitis, HTM, ON among others and it happened through sexual transmitted diseases, ROP/pre-maturity and consanguineous/genetics.

Dr Idris further called on parents to give their children and pregnant women food with nutritional value. He also urged them to report any eye case to the appropriate centres to reduce the risk of blindness in the state