Eye Donation - Some facts and stats !

Sometime its quite strange to think of a person, who is talking to you, can't see you. I mean we never get to know what picture of us .. he sets in mind. They never asked me what is the color of my T-Shirt, what is the color of my face. I guess, It's more or less the same when we listen to Radio jokey and say ah this girl must be beautiful as she has a nice voice. Oh my God, if that is the case, their self-depicted picture for me would be horrible.

Last weekend I was talking with one of us about the eye donation in India. I remember that Aishwaya ad that used to come just before the news. Figures are not good. not good at all. Let me share some common facts about eye donation which we should know :

1. What is eye donation and how it works :

- Corneal transplantation is a surgical procedure where a damaged or diseased cornea is replaced by donated corneal tissue. Eye donation has to be done within 6 hrs of death. Why Donation ? The only substitute for a human cornea is another human cornea.

2. Awareness in India :

- I tried to figure out some data but there is no research done at all India level. B Priyadarshini from Madurai has done a survey in south India. 50 percent participant are aware of eye donation whereas only 22 percent know that it need to be donated within 6 hrs from Death. 20 percent only heard about Corneal transplantation.

I guess same data applied across India or even less can be expected as South zone is highly educated zone in our country.

- Approximately 840,000 persons developing a corneal ulcer every year in India; this is 30 times the number of corneal ulcers seen in the United States.
- Donation is even less than 1/10th of required. I don't know what can be the barrier in eye donation. Maybe our dead body is not looking as cool as it need to be .. what a rubbish !

3. What we can do :

- Almost everyone of us can donate eyes. Even a person like me, who wears - 3.5 glass.
- It will not delay your funeral arrangements for long. This is funny, we can't see that. It will delay not more than 2-3 hrs.
- Every religion support eye donation. Who really cares !


4. Time and Money :

- In Lab, Cornea tissue can be preserved and stored for several days before it must be used for transplant. But in our country demands are so high that it has been used or distributed in 1-2 days.
- In US, it costs around 4000- 6000 Dollars but in India it cost less than 700-800 dollars. Why ? - Because The healthcare sector in India is one of the best in the world. Most patient comes from outside for this operation in India.

5. Success Rate :

- Corneal transplants are highly successful.
- Possible complications with keratoplasty include infection of the eye, bleeding after surgery and failure of the transplant itself, but rate is very less.

6. Some more :

- Eye Bank says, There are currently 202 eye banks in the country involved in collection and distribution of donated eyes (data from Eye Bank Association, India - personal communication).
- As mentioned above : The current annual procurement of eyes for donation in India remains at approximately one-tenth of the annual requirement (data from Eye Bank Association, India).


What else ! Please let me know if I missed any point. For reference, use this :

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_donation
2. http://www.medicaltourism.cc/category_story_1457.html
3. http://www.eyedonation.org/faqs.html
4. http://www.ijo.in/article.asp?issn=0301-4738;year=2003;volume=51;issue=1;spage=101;epage=104;aulast=Priyadarshini
5. http://www.sightlife.org/


Some more points on why donation or replacement is so less :

- Family at the time of your dead don't really remember you have donated eye and we need to contact doctor.
- Our culture not take it in a good way
- Lack of awareness
(Thanks to Abhishek)