They see, they learn: Pre-COVID-19 prevalence of refractive errors in school children in suburban areas of North India.

Purpose: India has the largest population of youth in the world, thereby making them important contributors to the "India of Tomorrow". Over 80% of knowledge gained is by the visual sense, thereby making school screening programs a necessity in our country. Data from the pre-COVID era, that is, 2017-18 was collected from close to 19,000 children in Gurugram, Haryana, a tier two city in National Capital Region, India. A similar prospective observational study is planned post COVID-19 (2022-23) for further analysis to depict the impact of COVID-19 in these areas. Methods: The program They See, They Learn was set at government schools in the area of operations (district of Gurgaon, Haryana), where the children and their families were unable to afford eye care services. All children who were screened underwent a comprehensive eye examination at the school premises itself. Results: A total of 18,939 students were screened over a period of 18 months, covering a total of 39 schools in the Gurugram belt, in the first phase of the program. Eleven point eight percent (n = 2254) of all school students had some form of refractive error. Girl students were found to have a higher refractive error rate (13.3%) compared to boy students (10.1%) across the schools screened. Myopia was the most common type of refractive error. Conclusion: School students require perfect vision or else they can be discouraged and may become a major burden to the economy of any developing nation. A school screening program aiming at populations that cannot afford such basic needs like spectacles is a must in all zones of the country.

An Unusual Case of Solitary Idiopathic Pigmented Vitreous Cyst.

Vitreous cysts are a rare finding and rarely cause any visual disturbances. They are often classified as idiopathic when their etiology cannot be determined. They may be congenital or acquired and pigmented or nonpigmented. In previous reports, it has been suggested on the basis of electron microscopy that these pigmented vitreous cysts may have originated from the pigment epithelium. We present the case of a 46-year-old female, with complaints of an oval-shaped floater, causing some visual disturbance in her right eye. On examination, it was found to be a pigmented, round, and nonlobulated cyst floating freely in the vitreous cavity with no attachments to the retina. This was documented and confirmed by the fundus images and optical coherence tomography findings. Laboratory tests in the patient were found to be negative for any Toxoplasma, cysticercoids, Echinococcus, and Toxocara, among others. She was on follow-up for the past 6 months with no change or disturbance in the cyst or the retinal findings. We describe a rare case of idiopathic pigmented vitreous cyst with no persistent hyaloid artery or connection between the cyst and the ocular structures.