Every twentieth child in Pakistan is suffering from squint or refractive error while three million children require eyeglasses annually to overcome eye disorders, said Dr Tayyab Afghani of the Al-Shifa Trust Eye Hospital on Tuesday. He said that the government should make it mandatory that every child must undergo a detailed eye examination at the time of admission to school so that an eye or sight disorder could be treated in time. “The trust had screened the eyes of two and a half million children in Rawalpindi division during the last 25 years and the data shows that only twenty percent children with some sort of disorder use glasses while others simply ignore it,” he said. He continued: “A majority of parents of the children needing treatment and glasses also ignores the issue for as long as possible, which is a very dangerous tendency,h” he added. Dr Afghani said that 15,000 teachers had been given basic training regarding sight problems while 150,000 children with squint had been treated successfully. Squint, refractive error and low vision should be treated before the age of sixteen as it becomes complicated with the passage of time and it can result in blindness, he maintained. “Squint problem occurs usually due to careless attitude of paramedical staff at the time of birth.” He said that Al-Shifa Trust was building Asia’s largest children eye hospital where around 500 would be checked on a daily basis. He said that eight mobile teams of the Al-Shifa Trust were engaged in screening at different schools while a qualified optometrist must be made available at every union council. Published in Daily Times, May 30th 2018.