Corneal blindness alarms India's youth: Doctors call for ugent action

New Delhi: Corneal blindness, once largely affecting the elderly, is rapidly becoming a major concern among India’s youth. Recent data presented at the Indian Society of Cornea and Kerato-Refractive Surgeons (ISCKRS) Meet 2025 in Delhi highlight a sharp increase in cases among teenagers and young adults nationwide.

Dr Rajesh Sinha, General Secretary of ISCKRS and Professor at AIIMS, New Delhi, revealed that a significant proportion of new corneal blindness cases are now being detected in individuals under 30. He attributed the upsurge to avoidable causes such as untreated infections, injuries, and inadequate awareness, leading to irreversible blindness. Corneal blindness typically results from clouding or scarring of the cornea due to trauma, infection, or nutritional deficits.

Corneal opacities have become India’s second leading cause of blindness. Each year, the country sees 20,000 to 25,000 new cases, with incidence steadily rising. Factors driving this trend include injury-related trauma, common among youths in agriculture, manual and industrial jobs, often left untreated or handled with unsafe home remedies, resulting in infections and scarring. Persistent vitamin A deficiency in some regions further contributes to severe corneal damage among children and adolescents. The crisis is aggravated by poor public awareness, delayed medical intervention, and limited access to specialist care in rural locales.

Dr Ikeda Lal of Sir Ganga Ram Hospital and Delhi Eye Centre underscored the urgency, labelling corneal blindness among youth as a public health emergency demanding a robust national strategy and community engagement. Despite a high need, India can only perform around 40,000 out of the 100,000-plus corneal transplants required annually due to donor shortages, a scarcity of trained surgeons, and under-equipped eye banks.

The ISCKRS meeting highlighted the need to expand infrastructure, train additional manpower, and boost public eye donation awareness. Experts also stressed the importance of early detection, especially through rural and school-based screening programmes, as well as extending care via tele-ophthalmology and mobile clinics to bridge urban-rural gaps.

Recommendations included launching national campaigns on eye hygiene and injury prevention, establishing 50 to 100 new eye banks, training 1,000 more corneal specialists in five years, and forging collaborations across government, NGOs, and educational institutions. The conference concluded by urging the fortification of school screening, the distribution of protective gear in high-risk sectors, and education about nutrition and prompt treatment.

With inputs from PTI