ENTOD Pharmaceuticals is collaborating with leading ophthalmologists from around the country to celebrate and promote voluntary non-remunerated eye donation by educating the public on the necessity of eye donation.

The initiative aims to reach out to more than 20 million people across the country and a number of social media influencers have also pledged to extend their whole-hearted support for the noble cause.

In India, nearly 68 lakh people suffer from corneal blindness in at least one eye and out of these, 10 lakh people are blind in both their eyes. Each year, around 75,000 people with corneal blindness in the country are missing out on the opportunity to regain vision. The reason being the shortage of donated corneas. Of the approximately one lakh patients with the eye disease, only about 25,000 undergo corneal transplantation. The magnitude of the issue is of grave concern as out of 10 million people with blindness in India, over two million are affected by corneal blindness and 60% of them are below the age of 12.

Only an eye donation from a deceased person can help restore the sight of a corneal blind person. In addition to that, there are only 435 functional eye banks (EBs) and eye donation centres (EDCs) in India involved in the collection and distribution of donated eyes as per the National Programme for Control of Blindness (NPCB).

"With this initiative, we wish to highlight that the barriers to eye donation are mostly due to misinformation and apprehensions about the proper utilization of the donated tissue. There are many misconceptions about different aspects of eye donation that we will address with this nationwide campaign at the grassroots level. We also recommend incorporating special lectures in schools and colleges on eye donation, educating the next generation through mass media and making eye donation a culture,” said Nikkhil K Masurkar, CEO, ENTOD Pharmaceuticals.

“Corneal transplantation is, without doubt, the most successful of all organ transplant procedures, but it is dependent on people’s willingness to pledge their eyes for donation and close relatives to be keen to honour that pledge on the demise of the individual. Henceforth, there is a necessity for reasonable awareness concerning eye donation in the community. Awareness of adults can enlighten the community members as well as their relatives and can motivate them for eye donation which in term will enhance the eye donation rates,'' said Padmashree Prof. Dr. S. Natarajan, Founder, Aditya Jyot Eye Hospital (a unit of Dr. Agarwals Eye Hospital).