Mandatory neonatal eye exams essential to halt ROP threats, warns Al-Shifa Opthalmologists

RAWALPINDI, Sep 03 (APP):Pediatric ophthalmologists at Al-Shifa Trust Eye Hospital issued a critical health warning on Thursday regarding a growing epidemic of Retinopathy of Prematurity (ROP) across Pakistan, urging the government to institute mandatory nationwide screening for premature newborns to prevent permanent childhood blindness.

Experts at the hospital’s Department of Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus confirmed that while improved neonatal survival has increased infant lifespan, this trend has exponentially expanded the population vulnerable to ROP. Out of an estimated one million premature births in Pakistan annually, approximately 300,000 infants develop varying stages of ROP, with thousands requiring complex sight-saving interventions.

The vascular retinal condition occurs when premature birth interrupts normal blood vessel development, triggering abnormal arterial growth that detaches or damages the retina, placing infants born weighing under 1.5 kilograms at the highest operational risk.

Highlighting critical gaps in services, ROP specialist Dr. Amjad noted that Pakistan lacks a standardized national screening framework. He contrasted this with a neighboring country to the east, where mandatory pre-discharge neonatal eye examinations have significantly curtailed ROP-induced blindness.

It is worth mentioning that, operating as the country’s sole specialized surgical facility for advanced ROP, Al-Shifa Trust performed 560 free surgeries over the past year.

Emphasizing that infants in rural and underserved tehsils face elevated risk due to delayed diagnoses outside the narrow therapeutic window, medical experts called on health authorities to mandate ROP screening across all Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICUs), scale up specialist training, and allocate public funding to prevent mass pediatric vision loss.