A national campaign to discover vision defects among students in basic education schools

Damascus-Sana

The Ministries of Education and Health launched a national campaign for early detection of vision defects and eye diseases among students of basic education schools, "the first episode" and will continue until the end of the current school year.

The campaign targets pupils from the first grade to the fourth in various governorates and aims to scan the visual ability of children and reveal vision defects such as refraction, dizziness and some other congenital ocular diseases, according to the director of school health in the Ministry of Education, Dr. Hutton Al-Tawashi.

Al-Tawashi told SANA that the campaign will contribute to the preparation of a statistical study to determine the prevalence of vision defects among students and the measures to be taken for prevention, noting that the suspected cases of eye clinics in hospitals and general clinics are being transferred to diagnose them accurately and provide appropriate treatment for them.

In turn, the Director of Damascus Health, Dr. Hazar Raef, stated that the campaign targets 300 schools in the governorate in cooperation with the Education Directorate by running 13 teams, each of whom includes an ophthalmologist from the Ministry of Health and specialized nurses to identify injuries, appropriate treatment, follow-up of cases, and counting the most prevalent diseases and their environmental and genetic causes.

In Damascus countryside, Dr. Nidal Kabul, head of the Harasta Health Region in the Health Directorate, drew attention to coordination between health areas, schools, and local and private bodies to carry out the campaign, while Dr. Rima Al-Assaf from the School Health Clinic in Jaramana explained that the campaign coincides with awareness-raising sessions and education for students and their families about the importance of periodic physical examination, as is done Documenting information about the number of students examined and the affected cases.

The headmaster of Nidal Badria School in Jaramana, Damascus countryside, Ibtisam Nasr, pointed to the role of the teacher in paying attention to the incorrect reading behavior of the student, which may be an indication of the presence of a disease or a defect in the narration, while the teacher Intelligence Haider pointed to the need to consider the place of the student who has problems with vision with Generally check the class lighting and the location of the blackboard.

Sakina Muhammad