September 11, 2017 On the occasion of the marking of the National Day of Amblyopia in the Ministry of Health, the city project for ocular diseases of the Clinical Hospital Sveti Duh “Ambliopija” has been presented…
It is the largest project in ophthalmology of this type that successfully treats “lazy eye”. Amblyopia means weakness of the eye and is the leading cause of blindness on one eye. In order to prevent it, it is necessary to recognize it in childhood. Read more about amblyopia here
To better address this problem, a project of early detection of “lazy eye” was launched, in which around 16,000 children in Zagreb’s kindergartens were examined. Another novelty was the world’s first national register of amblyopia patients.
Amblyopia or “lazy eye” is a problem that is affecting more than 8 percent of the Croatian population. Croatia is one of the 10 countries in the world that has a National Program for early detection of ambyopia, said Prof Mladen Bušić, PhD, director of the Clinical Hospital Sveti Duh.
Health Minister Milan Kujundžić pointed out that Croatia is the first country in the world that has created such a national register, but more importantly, that all children will be registered and all these eight percent, or about three and a half thousands, will be treated and healed and will have normal sight throughout life.
In order for the project to succeed, Dr Bušić encourages all parents to request a referral for their preventive ophthalmic examination on a pediatric systematic examination of children.
Our project, which we have worked on at the level of the City of Zagreb for three years, showed that the percentage of chidren with “lazy eye” in the four-year-old population was 8.1 percent. With this project, that is, this national program of early detection of amblyopia, the children of the Republic of Croatia will be given the possibility that when this vision weakness gets revealed at the examination, to cure it up to their seventh year. In as many as 90 percent of the cases – completely, Dr. Mladen Bušić said.
And in the remaining ten percent of cases, the disease can be significantly alleviated.
In order to treat it successfully, it is important to diagnose the weakness of the eye at the age of four. Testing is painless, so the Clinical Hospital Sveti Duh invites parents to respond and test their children free of charge.
www.radio.hrt.hr
www.prvi.hr