Health Page - Issue 18

18 - April 30th thru May 6th 2001, Vol XI

OPHTHALMIC EDUCATION
VISION 2020: The Right To Sight - Part 1

Mahfouth A Bamashmus
FRCSEd, FRCOphth
Consultant Ophthalmic Surgeon
Ibn Al-Haitham Clinic
University of Science & Technology, Sana'a
Ahmed Al-Shabooti MD
Head of Ophthalmology Department
Al-Thawra Hospital,
Sana'a
Every 5 seconds one person in the world goes blind and a child goes blind every minute. If national and international efforts to avert blindness are not intensified, the number of people with severe visual disability will double by the year 2020.
The mission of Vision 2020 is to eliminate the main causes of blindness in order to give all peoples of the world, particularly the millions of needlessly blind, the right to sight.
Vision 2020: The Right to Sight is designed to eliminate avoidable blindness by the year 2020. The program will enable all parties and individuals involved in combating blindness to work in a focused and coordinated way to achieve the common goal of eliminating preventable and treatable blindness. Vision 2020, in conjunction with the World Health Organization (WHO), is a global initiative for the elimination of avoidable blindness, which will take on the following responsibilities:
•Increase awareness of blindness as a major public heath issue
•Control the major causes of blindness
•Train ophthalmologists and other personnel to provide eye care
•Create an infrastructure to manage the problem
•Develop appropriate technology

Vision 2020 involves the active participation of UN agencies, governments, eye care organizations, health professionals, philanthropic institutions and individuals working together in a global partnership to accomplish this goal by the year 2020.

DID YOU KNOW
•80% of the world's blindness is avoidable.
•There are 45 million blind people and 135 million with low vision, comprising a total of nearly 180 million people with some degree of visual impairment
•90% of the world's blind people live in developing countries
•There are least 9 million blind people in India, 6 million in China, and 7 Million in Africa - together this constitutes half of the global burden of blindness
•People who live in the developing world are 10 times more likely to go blind than people who live in highly industrialized countries
•The main priorities for eliminating avoidable blindness are cataract (an eye disease of ageing), eye infections (trachoma and onchocerciasis), and visual loss in children
•It is estimated that at least 7 million people become blind each year
•The treatments available for the prevention and cure of blindness are among the most successful and cost-effective of all health interventions

Vision 2020 aims to prevent an additional 100 million men, women and children from becoming blind by the year 2020.

Reference: WHO launches Vision 2020 to combat avoidable blindness. Public Health Rep. 1999

Qat and Our Students

Ali Kaheli
Afif cultural organization is nearly the only private organization that seriously works to create a Yemeni generation without qat. It regularly holds meetings, gives lecturers, issues leaflets and posters etc. Two months ago I attended Afif's second meeting for school representatives. In the meeting qat was put in a guilt cage and was sentenced to death during the course of the coming ten years. Though we felt that the actual carrying out of this verdict was impossible, yet we realized that building the coming Yemeni generations without qat was possible. I was strongly shocked to read the statistics presented in the meetings:

- Qat water consumption is 60 million while the people's water consumption is 30 million.
- Qat covers 100,000 hicks which is the three fold of coffee farms. The following chart shows Qat in comparison with other crops:

Corps W.B studies
Corn845,000 tons
Vegetables25,000 tons
Fruit14,000 tons
Qat35 million bonds
In addition to that, specialized studies say that qat revenues reached 63,360 dollars while the revenues of other crops are as follows:
81,702 dollars for grape
50,505 dollars for coffee
36,640 dollars for orange
3,334 dollars for bananas

There were also terrible facts about health damage caused by qat. For example, a medical study done by Dr. Adeel Al-Emad revealed that 21% of cancer cases were caused by qat and that Yemen was threatened with cancer explosion as the number of cancer cases in Yemen has reached 6000 cases annually.

Petrified by these awe-inspired facts I put all of them to of my students. To know the result I finally made the following questionnaire in Hussein Schools:
In this questionnaire I found that 10% chew qat as a habit; 30% don't chew qat but they think that it is not so bad a habit although it deserves fighting; 50% believe that it's a bad habit that should be given up. I have pleasure to brief you on what students between 11-18 years say:

Hamza Al-Sarsoor: 10th year student, said that qat causes many diseases like cancer and headaches. He thought that Yemenis ought to stop chewing it.

Heba Shaldoom, 8th year student, said that qat had negative influence on our society. She stated that qat had the following effects:
--Economic effects:
a.The length of qat session (4-6) hours, which is usually followed by (6-8) hours of worrying and absent mindedness, bears no fruit.
b.Qat farms covers vast portions of our agricultural land.
c.The individual pays daily a big sum of money for qat as compared to his income.

B. Social effects:
1. Absence of parents from home causes indiscipline among the children.
2. Qat corrupts. Many employees can be bribed by a bond of qat.

C. Psychological effects:
1. Chewers of qat are always nervous and absent-minded.
2. Qat causes cancer and other disease that lead to psychological disappointment.

Mohammed Hamed Anbol, 10th year student, stated that the reason behind the wide spread of qat was people's ignorance of its bad effects. He said that Yemeni people should be aware of the social damages caused by qat. He also thought that the only solution was forbidding the buying of qat.

Naema Sami, 8th year student thought that qat was detrimental to health. She also considered it a useless item which has to be given up.

Thamir Jamil Shaldoom, 10th year student said that qat was highly appreciated by those who chew it. They thought that it gave them hours of fun and pleasure. He explained that such ideas about qat contradicted the truth that qat causes the loss of money and health. He added that qat ruined our ethical and religious principles. Qat chewing men became careless about their prayers and their bad health does not enable them to meet the responsibilities of their jobs.

I don't know how I should end my article, but I think we must be hopeful. It is a positive sign that there is at least one charitable organization that fights qat. I wonder if we will see our Yemen without qat one day.