24m Nigerians living with vision loss – FG

The federal government Tuesday said no fewer than 24 million Nigerians are living with vision loss, mostly from preventable and treatable conditions.

Minister of State for Health and Social Welfare, Dr Iziaq Adekunle Salako, stated this at the Public-Private Sector Roundtable on Eye Health held in Abuja.

The roundtable was themed: “GIFT of Sight: Mobilizing Partnerships and Sustainable Funding towards Transforming Eye Care in Nigeria.”

Dr Salako said avoidable blindness is quietly undermining Nigeria’s human capital and economic productivity, adding that vision is not just a health issue but a driver of economic output.
“A worker who cannot see clearly cannot manufacture efficiently, operate heavy machinery safely, analyse financial figures accurately, or till the soil effectively,” he said.

He listed cataract, glaucoma, uncorrected refractive errors and digital eye strain as major causes, adding that children with unaddressed visual impairments fall behind in school, while families are pushed into poverty caring for relatives with avoidable blindness.

The minister said reduced vision costs Nigeria billions of naira annually in lost output due to early retirement, workplace errors and reduced labour capacity.

Salako added that for decades, eye health interventions have depended on budgetary allocations and donor support, but added that no sovereign nation can secure the health of its citizens on foreign charity.
“The new path forward is to prioritise domestic resource mobilisation by strategically aligning government policy and resources with domestic private capital,” he said.

He lauded the partnership between First City Monument Bank (FCMB) and Tulsi Chanrai Foundation which has reached over 400,000 Nigerians in over a decade, describing it as a proven model for private sector intervention.