During 2014 the Armenian EyeCare Project organized eye screenings for 950 premature infants, 40 of them were diagnosed with ROP symptoms, which could cause blindness.

Armenian EyeCare Project representatives told NEWS.am Medicine journalist that all 40 infants received proper treatment by laser or antiangiogenic injections. During the last year 8 complicated surgeries of premature infants were carried out in the Centre of Excellence for the Prevention of Childhood Blindness, which was opened in September, 2014. The treatments were aimed at preventing blindness or further deterioration of vision. Not all of the infants were from Armenia, there were patients from neighbour countries as well.

In his interview with NEWS.am Medicine journalist Dr. Sui Chien Wong, the Armenian EyeCare Project International Mentor, paediatric retina surgeon from the Moorfields Eye Hospital, Great Ormond Street Hospital and Royal Free London Hospital, UK mentioned that the screening program works perfectly in Armenia, enabling to detect retinopathy at the earliest stage and to provide proper treatment without which the little patients would be doomed to blindness.  

Retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) is an eye disease that usually affects prematurely-born babies and can cause total blindness. In case the problem is detected during the first months and the proper treatment is provided it becomes possible to prevent the blindness. The efficiency of the treatment and the vision acuity depend on how much the retina has been affected and when the treatment started. On the other hand, as Dr. Wong explained, if the moment is missed and the treatment does not start on time, the retina of the infant will begin detaching, and the treatment will become more complicated and a successful outcome will be less likely.

Dr. Wong also stated that if the program had not detected those 40 kids, about 30 of them would have probably developed ROP and gone blind in the future.

“30 kids make a whole class. If 30 kids are not treated every year, there would be a whole school of blind students 10 years later in Armenia,” the doctor said.

The program of prevention and treatment of the retinopathy of prematurity was launched in Armenia in 2010 through screenings in intensive care units of Yerevan child hospitals and maternity hospitals. Screenings and treatment of identified patients is financed by the Armenian EyeCare Project that carries out a number of eye care programs in Armenia.