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SAARC ophthalmologists� meet ends

By Correspondent

NALBARI, Sept 20 - The two-day SAARC Summit of Ophthalmology 2015 that began at the Nalbari IMA Bhawan with the participation of 200 delegates from six SAARC nations � Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Bhutan and India � come to an end here this evening.

On the closing ceremony on Sunday, a programme billed �SAARC Panorama� was held where specialist ophthalmologists from the participating SAARC countries shared their views.

Speaking in the meeting, Dr Ava Hossain of Bangladesh, who is a former chairperson of the SAARC Ophthalmologists Academy, said that ocular trauma is a well established cause of monocular visual loss with significant social impact. She added that most of the important causes of the ocular trauma in this region are road accidents, violence and industrial and occupational hazards.

Delivering a lecture on the topic �School eye health-screening model�, Dr Muthusamy Malaravan said that involving the trained teachers in the vision screening of schoolchildren the workload of the ophthalmologists could be reduced.

Another specialist and the chairperson of the Sri Lanka Ophthalmologists Association, Dr Damayantha Baminiwatta elaborated the services of low vision care in her country. She added that the Sri Lanka ministry of health has launched a national low vision programme under Vision 2020 targeting the poor clients. However, she said it�s a tough job for the country�s 20 million population with only 45 general ophthalmologists.

The SAARC Panorama was also addressed among others by Dr Lila Rajpuri and Dr Sanjay Kr Singh from Nepal, Dr Nalin Goonesinghe from Sri Lanka, Dr Ngawang Tenzin from Bhutan, and Dr Nahid Ferdausi from Bangladesh.

In the morning session, a programme billed �Indian Panorama� was also held where renowned ophthalmologists from various parts of the nation took part. Earlier at a function on Saturday evening, the Nabadwip Award was conferred on Dr Nilakanta Pegu for his contributions towards rural folk.

The SAARC Summit of Ophthalmologists was held to mark the silver jubilee celebration of the Nalbari Eye Hospital here.

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