There are around 76 million people with glaucoma in the world, around 1 million in our country, but around half of them are unaware of it.
These are the data from "Vistain Salute - Report" of the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness - IAPB Italia Onlus, reported on the occasion of World Glaucoma Day, up to Saturday 16th.
Diagnosis is also made difficult by the country's current healthcare models, "no longer capable of managing the population's need for visual health - claims Mario Barbuto, president of IAPB - it is necessary for prevention to be an effective part of the treatment pathways. Nor is there proof of the existence long waiting lists" for eye exams.
The public offer, he continues, uses old models of ocular health, incapable of ensuring access to an eye examination for those who risk losing all or part of their sight.
With the aim of informing on the risks and damages of this "silent thief of sight", from Sunday 10 to Saturday 16 March the initiatives of the "World Glaucoma Week" of IAPB Italia Onlus will return to 100 Italian squares, a major awareness campaign that involves the territories in a widespread manner, thanks to the collaboration of the territorial structures of the Italian Union of the Blind and Visually Impaired, with the distribution of information leaflets in the squares of the provincial capitals, interviews with ophthalmologists in the local media and free checks or in-depth visits with ophthalmologists.
In fact, a large part of the population does not know what is glaucoma and the serious risk of vision loss that follows. And even those who have heard of the pathology and know it, mistakenly think that the symptoms are recognizable in time. But this is not the case.
Glaucoma, the main cause of irreversible blindness in the world, is a disease that damages the optic nerve, often associated with increased eye pressure.
It only gives symptoms in an advanced stage, when the damage can no longer be repaired.
In order to treat it, it is necessary to recognize it when the symptoms have not yet manifested themselves.
To find out if you have glaucoma, simply contact an ophthalmologist.
To learn more about the information in the brochure, simply frame the QR-code with your mobile phone and access the website www.settimanaglaucoma.it.
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