Reduction in outdoor activity and prolonged screen use, which have been worsened by the shift to online schooling during the pandemic, are contributing to a rise in myopia among children, a BJP member said in the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday.

While demanding a national programme for the prevention and control of childhood myopia during a special mention in the Rajya Sabha, BJP member Parmar Jashvantsinh Salamsinh sought the attention of the government to the rapidly rising burden of myopia among children.

"Reduced outdoor activity, intensive near work, and prolonged screen use, greatly worsened by the shift to online schooling during the pandemic, are the established contributors (to the rise in myopia)," he said.

Salamsinh said the disorder is projected to affect nearly half of the world's population by 2050, with about 10 per cent developing high myopia.

He said the prevalence is projected to reach 48 per cent by 2050, and a marked rise has been recorded even amongst rural children, from 4.6 per cent between 1980 and 2008 to 6.8 per cent between 2009 and 2019 in urban India.

"Correcting refractive error nationwide is estimated to cost between Rs 6.3 billion and Rs 24.6 billion. This is no longer merely about children needing spectacles; early-onset progressive myopia raises the lifetime risk of retinal complications, glaucoma, and myopic maculopathy," Salamsinh said.

He urged the government to constitute a national childhood myopia prevention and control programme providing for annual vision screening of school children, integrated with the school health and wellness programme and Ayushman Bharat, national clinical guidelines for outdoor activity, near work, and device use.

The BJP member also demanded affordable spectacles and control measures for poor children, a national surveillance and research programme on the subject and a sustained public awareness campaign for parents and teachers.

"Childhood is the critical period of ocular development. Preventive action now will avoid avoidable blindness tomorrow," Salamsinh said. 

(This report has been published as part of the auto-generated syndicate wire feed. Apart from the headline, no editing has been done in the copy by ABP Live.)