The cause of glaucoma is still largely a mystery to medical researchers, but the increasingly common eye disease is among the leading causes of blindness all over the world.
These are some of the points that will come into renewed focus next month when Antigua & Barbuda’s ongoing glaucoma awareness gets an annual booster.
A packed programme has been planned for Glaucoma Week, which begins on March 6 and continues until World Glaucoma Day on March 12.
Optometrist and president of Antigua & Barbuda Glaucoma Support Group Dr Jillia Bird is also president of the World Glaucoma Patients Association.
“Glaucoma is the leading cause of blindness in people of African descent,” she told The Daily OBSERVER. “It is silent and therefore you have to be tested in order to be aware if you have it. The statistics in our part of the world are particularly staggering in black Caribbean eyes. It is probably the leading cause of blindness in Antiguans.”
According to Dr Bird, people should be examined for glaucoma “even in childhood.” She said the condition “is really a group of diseases.”
The optometrist stressed that early diagnosis and treatment offer the only hope of preventing loss of sight from the disease.
She adds that this is even more important, given the type of glaucoma that tends to be common in countries such as Antigua.
She expanded further on why the risk should be treated with utmost seriousness. “The problem with the type that affects us black Antiguans – mainly the open angle glaucoma – is that as doctors we have a patient for one visit at one particular time of the day where the pressure (inside the eye) may be normal or considered normal, and we really have no way of knowing what that pressure is throughout the rest of the day.”
She added that “scientists have worked in the dark for a very long time trying to figure out what is this disease that damages the optic nerve and seems to be related to the intra-ocular pressure, but may not always be.”
Stressing how essential it is to get tested early, Dr Bird noted that “so many people are unaware they have it. It is a silent disease that steals sight slowly, painlessly and you may have well advanced disease before you are even aware that it exists.”
Activities for Glaucoma Week will include a donation of closed circuit TV for visually impaired readers, and glaucoma screenings.
World Glaucoma Day on March 12 will feature a march for sight and a rally.
