Is Innovation Leading India’s Vision?

When Ananya was six months old, her family knew she was born with a sight problem. A problem their family believed could never be solved. She lived the next 10 years in absolute blindness. Confined to her little dark world for years, she was finally diagnosed with bilateral cataract at a health camp in her village. After seeking treatment for a few months, she was finally able to see the world around her. And life changed forever. This is not a one-off story. It is the story of millions of people across the world. Of the 285 million visually impaired worldwide, 90 percent live in developing countries. Today, India is home to 18 percent of the world’s population and approximately 30 percent of the global blind population. About half of them are blind majorly from cataracts, glaucoma and retinal diseases. Under Vision 2020, the Right to Sight initiative by the World Health Organization, India pledged to work towards bringing down the prevalence of blindness to 0.3 percent by 2020, to achieve the elimination of avoidable blindness. And the blinding story in India’s ophthalmology is just beginning to unfold with innovation at the forefront.

But the question really is: Are these innovations reaching the millions who are waiting for them

Let’s understand this with cataract being a case in point. With around 15,000 ophthalmologists practicing in India, Indian ophthalmologists perform five million cataract surgeries annually, of which, 90 percent include Intraocular Lens Implantation (IOL), which came into the market with an inert biocompatible material. The lens can be implanted in the eye at the same location as the natural lens. Today, IOL technology has made a variety of premium lenses available — monofocal lenses, accommodating lenses, multifocal lenses, extended-range-of-vision lenses and toric lenses. Each of them change the way we see the world. Quite literally!

While these innovations are hitting global markets at a blistering pace, and they do travel to India, but do they reach our masses

Even today, India relies on Small-Incision Cataract Surgery (SICS) as a preferred procedure over Phacoemulsification (preferred worldwide) due to various factors. Although India is already making use of foldable IOLs and advanced IOLs at a growing stage, the Vision 2020 goal requires world innovations to each and every Indian. The need of the hour is to bring innovations to see a better future. From implantable visual prosthetics to new molecules in the treatment of eye care, the world is moving towards solutions that promise better patient outcomes. For a developing country like India, where blindness is preventable in at least 80 percent of the cases, we need to look at these options to make eye treatments not only affordable, but also accessible to all. In fact, the market is replete with the finest multifocal lenses which significantly reduce the need for reading glasses after cataract surgery. We are in times when treatments like femtosecond lasers promise high efficiency without damaging collateral tissue. Computer-controlled optical delivery systems with the use of these lasers have led to precise incisions without any damage to the surrounding tissues. Innovative technologies are changing the world’s vision with lenses and surgeries offering additional benefits or features which reduce recovery time.

For instance, the femtosecond laser (FSL) is used worldwide in ocular surgeries due to its ultrafast pulses in the range of 10 seconds and its decreased energy requirements for tissue destruction. The lens significantly reduces unintended destruction of surrounding tissues. Precise alignment of lenses, cataract programs and wide spectrum of IOLs is changing India’s vision, but the journey has just begun. Some of the newer fields, where the technology is yet to find feet in India, are Bionic eye, which is a device to make totally blind people see. Some of the other areas where India has to catch up are the field of Oculofacial aesthetics where though the technology is available uptake is not yet on the scale matching with the other countries. Newer technologies are going beyond the scope of conventional treatments and expanding the range of clear vision. At a time when India is undergoing a paradigm shift in the healthcare sector, it is important that new policies open the doors to innovation coming from the global healthcare industry. We need to encourage new technologies to enter the Indian medical industry to ensure people get the treatments they need, without any compromises on the quality. – Daily Pioneer