Govt mulls national eye bank registry for timely cornea transplants

New Delhi: The Union health ministry plans to establish a national eye bank registry to facilitate cornea transplants and ensure timely treatment for those with vision impairments.

At present, resource and logistical constraints prevent many patients from receiving harvested corneas despite availability, resulting in long waiting lists.

The proposed registry will notify patients and doctors about cornea availability in advance. Now, only 50% of patients in need receive corneas, while the rest do not have access to treat their blindness, said a health ministry official.

Most common cause of blindness

In India, corneal conditions are the leading cause of blindness in individuals up to 49 years old, accounting for 37.5% of the cases, according to the recent Rapid Assessment of Avoidable Blindness (RAAB) survey.

“Recently, we have conducted a meeting to streamline the process of cornea donation, allocation and distribution because there is no appropriate system as of now. Cornea is primarily stored in eye banks, and these are harvested in hospitals which have transplant facilities."

"However, cornea lifting is not done in the way organs are transported. The way we maintain the allocation process of vital organs like the heart, similar kind of system we are trying to bring in for cornea transplant. So, the plan is to develop a national eye bank registry,” the official said.

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“We are able to meet 50% requirement of patients. However, waiting list is very long.” The entire exercise is being done under the ‘one-nation-one-organ donation policy’; he added.

A harvested cornea remains viable for up to four days. Cornea transplants involve replacing damaged corneal tissue with healthy donor tissue.

Few eye bank facilities

Currently, only a few hospitals, such as All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), have eye bank facilities. Without a national registry, patients in various states and cities face challenges in receiving transplants. Eye banks are responsible for collecting, processing, and distributing donor corneas only to trained corneal surgeons.

“In India, we have a huge waiting list of patients. Approximately 100 thousand corneal transplants are required in a year. However, we are able to perform only around 40,000 transplants nationally. These patients comprise of children, patients blind with both eyes and other complex cases," said Dr Radhika Tandon, professor of ophthalmology at AIIMS, Delhi.  

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“At any point of time, we at AIIMS have 400-500 patients waiting for cornea transplant. But we try to make sure that the children and people who are blind get it on priority. Whenever cornea is harvested, it gets used up locally and we do not have a surplus,” she added.

Queries sent to a health ministry spokesperson remained unanswered till the time of publishing.