TEHRAN – The Welfare Organization carried out vision screening tests for diagnosing Amblyopia (known as lazy eye) for 3.4 million children aged 3 to 6 years during the past Iranian calendar year 1397 (March 2018-March 2019), the organization’s director Vahid Qobadi Dana announced.

Lazy eye is a vision development disorder in which an eye fails to achieve normal visual acuity, even with prescription eyeglasses or contact lenses.

The screening tests were done in over 41,000 health centers during the Iranian calendar months of Azar (November 21-June 20, 2018) and Dey (June 21, 2018 – January 20, 2019), Qobadi Dana explained.

The vision screening tests for preventing Amblyopia began in 1997 nationwide and 42.5 million children have so far been screened during the program, he said.

Out of this figure, 1.585 million children were diagnosed with vision impairments, he noted.

Screening tests in the year 1397 showed 15,000 children were suffering from Amblyopia and 75,000 children were diagnosed with other vision impairments, he added.

Over the past 24 years, about 70 billion rials (about $1.7 million) has been allocated for Amblyopia screening tests in different parts of the country, he concluded.

SB/MG