With a significant proportion of ocular diseases that are currently not amenable to conventional treatment, the number of blind people in the country is expected to touch an alarming 24 million by the year 2010, said Dr Rajat Agarwal, director, intraocular retinal prosthesis (IRP), study, Doheny Eye Institute, USA.

Participating at CME Programme on ‘Artificial Vision - An Update’ on Sunday, Dr Agarwal, said that at present there were nearly 15 million blind people in India which is 24 per cent of the world’s blind population.

“A significant proportion of ocular diseases like Retinitis Pigmentosa and Age Related Macular Degeneration often lead to devastating blindness and with such a scenario looming large, researchers around the world are exploring options in stem cell and gene therapy to combat this lacuna,” he said. He added that ‘artificial vision’ has fascinated research scientists and curious clinical workers the world over and in the next one or two years a significant progress in this regard could be attained.

“They are working on optic nerve ‘cuff electrode’ where the electrode will be placed around the optic nerve, he said. City based Narayana Nethralaya in its quest to be at the forefront of finding innovative solutions to such problems announced the stetting up of the Paediatric Retina Department which will focus on Retinopathy of Prematurity. A state-wide screening and training programme is currently being planned to address this issue, said, Dr Rajani Battu, vitreo-retinal consultant, Narayana Nethralaya.