BHUBANESWAR: LV Prasad Eye Institute (LVPEI) has crossed a major milestone in preventing avoidable blindness in newborn babies by managing over one lakh preterm babies for retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) across its network centres in Odisha, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.
ROP is a blinding eye disease and an emerging epidemic of the 21st century. Babies born early (premature) or with low birth weight (less than two kg at birth) are at the risk of developing the disease.
A faculty at LVPI, Bhubaneswar Dr Tapas Ranjan Padhi said as many as 1,00,687 babies from across the country and neighbouring countries have been managed for ROP by providing preventative, curative and rehabilitative care.
Of these, 64,000 babies have been managed at LVPEI’s Kallam Anji Reddy campus in Hyderabad, 17,000 at Bhubaneswar campus, 9,000 at Vijayawada campus, 8,000 at the Visakhapatnam campus and 9,500 through the LVPEI rural secondary centres.
The institute had launched a unique, one-of-its-kind LVPEI atlas of ROP and other neonatal retinal diseases’ - a useful guide for clinicians, researchers, healthcare personnels and policy makers, Dr Padhi said.
Among those identified with ROP, 6,685 babies were safely operated on, 4,559 babies received lasers and 1,510 babies received injections to manage difficult stages of the disease. Network director of newborn eye health alliance (NEHA) of LVPI Dr Subhadra Jalali said each treated baby can take anywhere from one to four hours of focused care by the team followed by years of follow-up care to achieve the best possible vision by the time they enter school life.