By Gabriel Olawale

The Executive Director, Restore Foundation For Child Sight, RFCS, Dr Halima Alimi has explained that structural differences in the eyes of people living with albinism  is responsible for their visual challenges.

Speaking in Lagos during a comprehensive free eyes testing and treatment for children living with albinism, Halima said  early detection and correction of these differences enables progress for those affected.

She hinted that every child living with albinism needs to be examined by ophthalmologist as early as three months.

“Why is it important? People living with albinism lack melanin in their body that is why their skin is so fair. What happened when there is no melanin in the body is that the eyes developed differently from that of person with melanin. Melanin helps to absolve excess light which is lacking in people living with albinism.

“So there are some guarantee structural differences in the eye that guarantee that every albino eyes cannot see normally, every single one with no exception. Now, there is nothing that can be done because it is structural problem.

However, a lot of them come with different issues aside the structural differences, that is the one we can address. The danger is that if a child has those errors from childhood and nothing is done, it will limit what progress they can make later in life.”

Halima who expressed displeasure over the level of ignorant in the society, said that a lot of people don’t know that if they start using glasses from young age, it will help their vision to develop to a reasonable extent going forward.

“As a Foundation, we advocate and intervene for eye health in children and we are concern about disadvantage children. What we do basically is to identify those that need helps and provide it. For two weeks, we have been attending to people living with albinism. Our message to people is that when they see a child as little as three months living with albinism, they should tell the parent to check their visual by see a pediatric ophthalmologist.

“This Foundation has been on for almost two years now and we have been to various places. Few months ago we are at Makoko community in Lagos riverine community for five days and we attend to over 1,000 children with eye challenges. We have also trained over 1,000 teachers in different part of Lagos State on how to detect when a child need help and also support with schools with free test kits. Going forward, we are going to visit more less advantage people and orphanages and we are counting on support of well-meaning individuals and organizations.”

Speaking on behalf of their members, the Public Relation Officer of Lagos Albinism Awareness Society, Mr. Onasanya Mojeed admonished parents to support their children in ensuring that they make use of their glasses and go for regular checkup.

“This is a wonderful and life changing programme for people living with albinism in Lagos State. We never had this kind of programme before, this is the first of its kind and we are very grateful. God will continue to provide for the Foundation.”