Covid-19 impact sees a decline in corneal donation

Patients are scared of visiting hospitals for fear of contracting the virus

Corneal donations have come down to a dismal 10 per cent due to Covid-19. Corneal tissue donation was one of the most successful programmes of the government. The network of hospitals, which carried out counselling and donation of corneal tissues, was widespread.

Due to this, there were 60,000 donations in India during 2019. Before that, these donations ranged from 30,000 to 40,000.

Corneal tissue transplants had seen a major rise since a decade, with people volunteering for donations. The number of donations that rose slowly peaked last year, which depicted the success of the programme.

But the spread of SARS CoV-2 virus with lockdown in March has led to a drastic decline in these donations.

With superspeciality hospitals becoming Covid-19 treating hospitals, patients are not approaching these hospitals for other ailments. Small and middlelevel hospitals got shut down and post unlocking, they have been facing operational issues. Patients are scared of visiting hospitals for fear of contracting the virus. Grief counsellors, paramedical staff and other human resources in hospitals are not available for facilitating donations.

Dr T.P. Das, senior ophthalmologist at LV Prasad Eye Hospital, says, “With SARS CoV-2 affecting eyes and also being a mode of transmission, there is social stigma attached to eye donation. This is proving to be one of the biggest hurdles to this programme.”

In pre-Covid times it was noted that 50 per cent of the corneas collected were not fit for transplant. The requirement in India is two lakh corneas every year.

There are more than 600 eye banks in India. The need for corneal tissues is high, as there are 12 lakh corneal blind in the country.

Further, 30,000 new cases get added every year. With Covid-19 impacting the programme, the gap is going to widen, say experts, pointing out that the disease burden is going to see a drastic rise.

Dr Santosh Kumar Kraleti, public health specialist, said, “Corneal donations do not require protocols like blood donation. A donor’s blood need not match the recipient's blood. This means everyone can be an eye donor. The success rate in restoring vision by corneal transplant is 95 per cent.”

There is urgent need to bring cornea donation programme back on track, at least in those hospitals, which are non-Covid. Restoring confidence back into the healthcare infrastructure is important, so that people can come forward for treatment of other ailments apart from Covid19.