The Chennai District Blindness Control Society (DBCS) is planning a detailed survey of children aged less than thirteen years in the entire Chennai city corporation area to study the prevalence of Vitamin A deficiency and its influential factors.

Divided into ten zones, the study would compare the prevalence of Vitamin A deficiency and disorders among various urban and rural children, and among lower economic group and children from various social strata.

The project, also aimed to establish the social factors that cause the deficiencies, would further compare the prevalence and factors of deficiencies in various zones of study. Vitamin A deficiency induced vision problems are reversible if detected at an age less than 13, and that was the reason for screening children below 13 years, said sources with DBCS.

According to sources, the study is a continuation of a recently concluded first phase project to identify the prevalence of vision defects in school children in the city limits.

In the first phase, 290 teachers in the region were trained to identify visual defects with the help of vision charts. Trained at six centres in the city, each teacher screened about 300 students, covering 1.48 lakh school going children within the Chennai Corporation area. The screening programme helped to identify 10, 000 children having vision problems.

In the soon to start second phase, DBCS plans to involve ophthalmologists to test for vision defects like myopia, hypermetropia, astigmatism and other congenital anomalies among the 10, 000 children identified in the first phase.

The organisation is planning to offer free spectacles for the students who require it under the programme by roping in various sponsors and funding agencies, said the sources.