They appeared everywhere at the entrance to shops, at bus stops, in parks. One foot on the pedal and immediately hydroalcoholic gel sprinkles the hands of adults. But also… the faces of children. “These dispensers are about a meter high, and more and more small ones, wanting to clean their hands, get it in their eyes, which sometimes causes severe eye burns. They can go as far as blindness, warns Laurent Kodjikian, president of the French ophthalmology society, which launches the alert in the Parisian. We fear that this phenomenon will gain momentum ”.
It all started with the Rothschild Foundation Hospital in Paris, which announced, a few days ago, an increase in serious eye damage caused by these dispensers. “Imagine, to treat myopia, you use 20% alcohol. It only takes 30 seconds for the epidermis of the cornea to peel off. There, hydroalcoholic gels contain 60 to 80%, explains Professor Eric Gabison, of the Rothschild hospital. We must therefore be extremely careful ”.
In four months, the team of ophthalmologists took care of six children under the age of four, including three severe cases, requiring emergency surgery against only one in 2019. If a little one was still hospitalized on Thursday, all are now healed. “As the corneal epidermis was burnt, their vision had diminished. Under general anesthesia, their eye was therefore covered with an amniotic membrane, obtained from the placenta that we receive from a tissue bank, explains the professor. It is a sort of absorbable dressing, which allows for optimal healing ”.
For an alert message
Since this weekend, three new cases have been identified including one in Bayonne and another at Necker hospital in Paris. “Last week, a child of about five years old arrived with us, hydroalcoholic gel had squirted into his eyes, fortunately medical treatment was enough to cure him, says Professor Dominique Brémond-Gignac, head of the ophthalmology service. At this age, keratitis, which is inflammation of the cornea, goes quite unnoticed, often the child does not complain, so there may be many more cases than what is observed ”. "We are just in the process of identifying them", slips the president of the French society of ophthalmology.
When your child receives droplets, the first reflex, immediately rinse his eye with physiological saline for at least half an hour. "And if you don't have one, use water," Eric Gabison insists. If an hour later he complains of pain, that his eye is red or his vision is diminishing, do not hesitate to go to the emergency room ”.
The teacher asks that an alert message be displayed on the vending machines. "They are important in the public health policy against the coronavirus but children must be kept away from them and a" danger warning "display seems essential to me". As for Laurent Kodjikian, he goes further. “If they're in places where kids can be, why not take these types of vending machines out? ".