First National Eye Care Day

09 Dec 2000

By Mr Lim Hng Kiang

Venue: Singapore National Eye Centre

Distinguished guests

Ladies and gentlemen

It gives me great pleasure to be here today at the First National EyeCare Day, jointly organised by the Singapore National Eye Centre,Singapore Eye Foundation, Rotary Club of Singapore West and DiabeticSociety of Singapore.

The objective of organising the National Eye Care Day is to drawattention to the importance of maintaining good eye health. The 3 keyeye problems we face are cataracts, diabetic eye disease and myopia.Cataract is a major problem among the elderly, diabetic eye diseaseamong the not-so-old, and myopia among the young.

First, cataracts. With increasing life expectancy and proportion ofelderly persons , the number of age-related cataracts is expected toincrease. Cataracts are generally not amenable to prevention, butmaintaining good eye care would certainly help. The good news is thatnormal vision can be restored with surgery. Today, we have about220,000 people aged 65 years and above, making up about 7% of ourpopulation. By 2030, it will be about 18%. Over the last decade, thetotal number of cataract operations in Singapore has increased by morethan two-fold to 15,500 in 1999. We can therefore expect the number ofcataract operations to increase over the years. This is a consequenceof a rapidly ageing population.

Second, diabetic eye disease. About 9% of adult Singaporeans sufferfrom diabetes. Diabetic eye disease, or diabetic retinopathy, affectsabout a quarter of our diabetic patients. Blindness and visual lossresulting from this condition are preventable with early detectionthrough eye screening and timely treatment. Good diabetic control isessential to prevent such complications from developing. But moreimportantly, we need to encourage Singaporeans to adopt a healthylifestyle so that they are less susceptible to diseases such asdiabetes.

Next, let me turn to myopia or "short-sightedness". Myopiacan result in long-term disability and blindness. Undetected myopia inearly life before the age of 6 years can lead to a condition calledamblyopia or "lazy eye". It usually affects one eye, givingrise to poor vision. Furthermore, severe myopia is associated with ahigher risk of complications later in life, such as retinal detachmentand cataract. Studies have shown that those with high myopia have aten-fold higher risk of retinal detachment. These complications canlead to poor vision and even blindness.

The cause of myopia is not well understood and there are noscientifically proven ways to prevent it. However, studies have shownthat besides hereditary, "near work" is a major causalfactor.

Myopia is a major public health problem in Singapore, which has one ofthe highest prevalence rates in the world. Nearly 40% of our adultpopulation have myopia, which is about two times higher than that ofnon-Asian countries, such as United States and Australia. However, our rates are fairly similar to that in some Asian cities. Among our 12-year-olds, 62% of them are myopic. This is comparable to that in Hong Kong (60%) and Taiwan (56%).

There are also a number of very worrying trends. Firstly, our childrenare becoming myopic at an increasingly early age. Over the last decade,the prevalence of myopia among our children in Primary 1 has almostdoubled to 30% in 1999. Secondly, an increasing proportion of childrenare becoming myopic in our primary schools. In 1999, 62% of children inPrimary 6 had myopia. Among 18-year-olds, 83% of them were myopic,Thirdly, the proportion of Singaporeans with severe myopia is alsorelatively high. About 10% of Singaporeans have severemyopia, compared to less than 2% observed in most Western populations.

My Ministry is taking this trend of increasing prevalence and rapidprogression of myopia among our young children seriously. We areworking on a national myopia prevention programme to reduce theprevalence of myopia, together with the experts from the NationalCommittee on Ophthalmology. We are looking at measures to arrest thisvery disturbing trend and reduce the incidence of myopia. These includeeffective strategies on preventive health education on eye care as wellas vision screening to detect myopia early. More importantly, we needthe support of all parents and teachers to ensure the success of theprogramme.

Over the years, my Ministry has worked very closely with the Ministryof Education to promote good vision care for children in schools and tocreate a school environment that is beneficial to the eyes. Theseinclude guidelines on good reading habits, vision breaks and adequatelighting in the classrooms and reading areas. My Ministry will continueto work in partnership with the Ministry of Education in this newprogramme to achieve the long-term goal of reducing the prevalence ofmyopia in our children. We will announce the details of this programmein due course.

To conclude, I applaud the efforts of the Singapore National Eye Centreand the various organisations in putting together this First NationalEye Care Day to inform, educate and create awareness of eye health andto encourage greater participation in preventive eye care programmes.This Eye Care Day provides an excellent opportunity for members of thepublic and health care professionals to interact, share and addresstheir various concerns.

It now gives me great pleasure to launch the First National Eye CareDay.