HYDERABAD: Prevalence of blindness and visual impairment is one of the highest in Telangana, as inferred from the ‘National blindness and visual impairment survey in India’ report, released by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Thursday.
The survey was conducted by AIIMS, New Delhi. 31 districts from 24 States and Union Territories were selected and 3,000 people from each district 3,000 people were surveyed. From Telangana, the erstwhile Warangal district was selected.
The survey reports that the prevalence of blindness was second highest in Warangal among the 31 districts, with a prevalence rate of 3.47 per cent, whereas the prevalence of visual impairment was 20.31 pc. The district with highest prevalence of blindness and visual impairment was Bijnor in Uttar Pradesh (3.67 and 21.82 per cent) respectively.
The survey was undertaken in Telangana in 2016, before the start of the State’s Kanti Velugu programme. The major reason behind people losing vision was found to be untreated cataract in 66.2 percent cases, and refractive error in 70.6 percent cases.