The government aims to provide improved primary eye-care services to at least 2 crore people over the next five years as part of its efforts to prevent blindness and visual impairment, State Minister for Health and Family Welfare Dr MA Muhit has said.
He disclosed the plan at a discussion held in the capital on Thursday, marking World Sight Day 2026.
The state minister said the government has decided to integrate primary eye care into primary healthcare and take it across the country, particularly reaching people in underserved communities, schools and workplaces such as garment factories.
“Through vision screening and treatment, we want to improve people’s productivity, ability to work and income,” he said.
Muhit said the government will also establish a proper referral network and identify referral hospitals so that patients detected through screening and early diagnosis can receive appropriate treatment.
Under the plan, the government will provide spectacles to 1 crore people, including schoolchildren, and arrange cataract surgery for at least 10 lakh people, he said.
It will also provide training to at least 80 percent of ophthalmologists and develop a National Eye Health Strategic Plan to ensure the sustainability of the programmes, the state minister said.
He said the government has committed US$ 130 million investment in eye health care in the next five years.
Muhit described the commitments, which will be presented at the Global Summit for Eye Health next month, as a major step forward, while acknowledging that achieving the targets would not be easy.
National Institution of Ophthalmology and Hospital (NIO&H) and Ophthalmological Society of Bangladesh (OSB) jointly organised the discussion with the support of INGO Forum in Eye Health.
NIO&H Director Dr Syeed Mehbub Ul Kadir, IAPB Country Chair (Bangladesh Chapter) and Orbis International Country Director Dr Munir Ahmed, OSB President Dr Md Tauhidur Rahman and Secretary General Prof Md Ninnu Rain (Newton), INGO Forum Chair and Sightsavers Country Director Amrita Rejina Rozario, and VisionSpring Managing Director Misha Mahjabeen, among others, spoke at the discussion.