In the past two decades, progresses have been made in terms of the rate of blindness case. During the 1990s, the national figure for blindness was 1.47 percent, while in 2013 it decreased to 0.6 percent. This is, however, still behind those in Singapore (0.35 percent) and Thailand (0.4 percent).
"This means that blindness still poses a problem of public health, which calls for participation from everyone (government agencies, NGOs, and society) to tackle it,” said Dr. Agus Supartoto, SpM(K), chairman of Association of Opthalmologists (PERDAMI) for Yogyakarta in Faculty of Medicine UGM, Tuesday (28/10), during the annual meeting of the association in Yogyakarta from 30 October to 1 November 2014.
Agus Supartoto said the high prevalence in Indonesia compared to Singapore and Thailand was due to the extensive geographical condition with plenty of remote islands and high population.
Prof. dr. Suhardjo, SU, Sp.M(K), event chairman, said the meeting was one form of continuiting medical education that medical sciences always develop in line with the development of technology and new scientific evidence.
"Thus, medical practitioners have to update their knowledge based on those new scientific evidences,” he said.
The meeting brings together over 20 speakers from the U.S., Nepal, Japan, the Netherlands, Korea, the U.K, India, Singapore, Malaysia, and Brussel as well as 160 eye specialists from Indonesia.