Health promoters began their activities through interest circles with adolescents at the Carlos Baliño elementary school, surrounded by concerns, reasoning, and a lot of vitality, as part of the preventive work proposed by specialists from Las Tunas during the current World Glaucoma Week.
Las Tunas, Cuba.- Second Degree Ophthalmology specialist Noraidis Suárez Esteves commented to 26 that the purpose of these meetings is to collaborate, from the community, in the orientation and detection of people with symptoms of the disease for an opportune intervention.
The talks and debates are focused on eye hygiene and protection, classifications, treatment, adherence to treatment, and health care review, topics that in this first meeting aroused the curiosity of the students about the risk factors and the diagnosis of this chronic disease, which hardly shows any symptoms until it is very advanced.
Suarez Esteves said that in the Ophthalmology services the strategies are focused on early diagnosis and an accessible and accepted management by the community, and from the need to provide education to the patient, the family, and the professionals of the sector to avoid the progress of this pathology towards blindness.
There are 4,628 visually impaired people in the province, for a rate of 4.5 per 1,000 inhabitants, of whom 785 are blind. The average age was 58.6 years. Glaucoma is now the leading cause of blindness (21.5 percent) and visual impairment (35.6 percent). During 2023, 53 patients were examined by the specialty and it was also the first cause of total disability with 20 cases.
The doctor emphasized the need to guarantee a healthcare approach to glaucoma as a health problem, based on the integration of ophthalmological services from Primary Care, focusing on patient education to prevent blindness.
The celebration of World Glaucoma Week will last until March 16, and the objective in Las Tunas is to provide more information to the communities.
Currently, the prevalence of blindness in Cuba is 56 thousand people, one for every 200 inhabitants, and the prevalence of low vision is 180 thousand people. Of the main causes of bilateral blindness in adults, glaucoma is in second place; however, it is the leading cause of blindness that is not curable, but preventable.
It is estimated that 50 percent of glaucoma cases are undiagnosed, even in first-world countries. On the island, this challenge seeks to unite more and more efforts.
