Eye donations pick up in Maharashtra after declining by 80% in 2020

Mumbai: Eye donation, one of the most prominent tissue donations, took a massive hit in Maharashtra due to Covid-19. From 6653 donations during the pre-pandemic period between 2019-2020, the number had declined by nearly 80% with only 1355 donations recorded in 2020-2021.

Between April 2021 to February this year, as many as 2868 eye donations were carried out, but the numbers are still far from the pre-pandemic average. Eye donation involves donation of cornea- the transparent tissue covering the front of the eye. The cornea helps the eye to focus light for a clear vision. Experts say that corneal blindness is among the commonest causes of blindness after cataract and glaucoma.

In 2020, when the pandemic was at its peak, it brought eye donation programmes to a complete halt. The cornea retrievals at home as well as in the hospitals were stopped due to the fear of spreading the infection. The state government allowed the hospital retrievals to resume from June 2020, and thereafter the residential retrievals from December 2020, however, the donations have only picked up with a slow pace.

“The pandemic brought in a lot of gathering restrictions when the cases were increasing, however, many families are still apprehensive about calling a team from the eye bank to retrieve the corneas,” said Dr Padmaja Jogewar, joint director (non-communicable diseases), Directorate of Health Services, Maharashtra. “We expect the programme to pick up pace now that the third wave has receded completely,” she said, adding that the state has set the target for 5000 eye donations between 2022-2023, 5500 for 2023-2024 and 6000 for 2024-2025.

Maharashtra has about 80 public and private eye banks that send out teams for retrieving corneas at home. The eye surgeons and eye banks work in tandem when it comes to distribution of the corneas. Each surgeon has their own waiting list of patients and the eye banks send out the corneas as per the priority.

Nearly 50% of the collected corneas are used for research purposes as they are found unfit for transplants. According to the DHS estimates, over 800 people are on the waiting list for corneal transplants.

“There has been a considerable dip in the collection since the pandemic started, but I am optimistic that the donations will pick up now,” said Dr Quresh Maskati, trustee of the Eye Bank Coordination and Research Centre in Parel. During the pre-pandemic days, the Parel eye bank collected anywhere between 80 to 100 corneas monthly. Between February and March (till Saturday) this year, the eye bank has collected only 50 corneas.

The corneas can be kept in the eye bank for about 10 days. Better preservative solutions allow preservation of the corneas for up to 12 days. “The overall corneal transplant procedures also took a hit due to Covid, with only a few emergency surgeries carried out,” said Dr Pranav More, a Pune-based corneal surgeon. “Before the pandemic, I would conduct about four to five corneal transplants, but I have hardly done any transplant when the first and second wave was ongoing,” said More adding that it was only this month that he has gone back to the average of four to five transplants.

From 3058 corneal transplants conducted in 2019-2020, the number declined by 72% in 2020-2021, when only 847 such procedures were conducted in the state. Between April 2021 to February this year, the number of corneal transplants has touched 1733.

Not just eye donations, the pandemic also impacted organ donations such as kidneys, heart, lungs and their transplants. For instance, only 30 deceased organ donations were recorded in Mumbai in 2020, in comparison to 79 in 2019. In 2021, the city recorded 33 organ donations.