New smartphone app can test your
eyesight
London: A modified smartphone with a
new app can act as a 'pocket optician' to effectively test eyesight and even
scan the eye for cataracts, researchers have found.
Researchers at the London School of
Hygiene and Tropical Medicine believe the smartphone app can transform eye care
for millions of people in remote parts of the world. A trial on 233 people in
Kenya showed that the Portable Eye Examination Kit (Peek) produced the same
results as eye charts, researchers said.
The team in London, with colleagues in
Scotland, modified a smartphone to develop a series of eye tests that could be
used with little training and were easily portable.
Peek uses the phone's camera to scan
the lens of the eye for cataracts. Its "Acuity App" uses a shrinking
letter which appears on screen and is used as a basic vision test.
It uses the camera's flash to
illuminate the back of the eye to check for disease, 'BBC News' reported. The
first clinical data from tests in Kenya, published in the journal JAMA
Ophthalmology, show the vision test gives the same results as the rows of
letters pinned to an optician's wall. The phone is relatively cheap, costing
around 300 pounds, while using bulky eye examination equipment costing in
excess of 100,000 pounds.
"The main reason for most people
not getting eye treatment is simply that they don't access the services and that's
usually because the services are so far away from them or are
unaffordable," Dr Andrew Bastawrous, who led the project, told the BBC.
"If we can detect people with
visual impairment much earlier on then we have a much greater chance of
increasing awareness and ensuring they have appropriate treatment.
"So something as simple as a vision test can be part of
that journey," he said.
Source: www.zeenews.india.com
02.06.2015
Govt to open 1,000 Jan Aushadi
stores for cheaper medicines
New Delhi: In order to provide
medicines at rates that are 60-70 per cent lower than market prices, the
government will soon open 1,000 more Jan Aushadi stores across the country.
The stores will be renamed, rebranded
and involve B. Pharma and M. Pharma qualified unemployed populace, Minister of
State for Chemicals and Fertilisers Hansraj Ahir said Monday.
"These stores will be opened for
the underprivileged who would be provided medicines at a price of 60-70 per
cent less than the market price," Ahir said in a statement.
The ministry is working on opening all
these 1000 stores under the 'Jan Aushadhi Scheme' on a single day, he said.
Jan Aushadi was started in 2008 and
around 100 stores are operating under the scheme. In August 2013, the
government had approved a plan to open 3,000 more stores during the 12th Plan
period from 2013-14 to 2016-17.
Meanwhile, Officials of the Department of Pharmaceuticals
(DoP), the nodal agency for implementation of the scheme has been regularly
holding meetings with various stake holders in this regard.
Source: www.zeenews.india.com
02.06.2015
Now is no time to think of what you do not have. Think of what you can
do with what there is
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