Globally, public health services are failing to meet targets to reduce avoidable vision loss or blindness, revealed a study.
‘Global blindness and severe vision impairment are set to double by 2050. ’
The study revealed that the overall number of individuals blind and vision-impaired had increased. Since 2010, a 15.4% decrease in avoidable blindness was recorded, but there was no significant decrease in moderate or severe vision loss.
Causes of vision loss/blindness
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The uncorrected refractive error condition is the major contributor to moderate or severely impaired distance vision. It affects 86 million people globally. More than 500 million people are estimated to be living with uncorrected presbyopia (aging eye condition).
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Lead author Rupert Bourne, Professor of Ophthalmology at Anglia Ruskin University (ARU), said: "It is clear from the results of this study that efforts by eye care services across the world have failed to keep pace with the ageing and growth of populations, and have failed to reach targets set by the World Health Assembly. While prevalence of blindness has decreased, the number of cases has actually risen. "If this continues, health infrastructure will continue to creak and fail to reach the people that need relatively simple solutions to their vision loss. The effect of COVID-19 is likely to exacerbate this issue, with research having already shown delays and an increasing backlog of people in need of eye care." Serge Resnikoff, Professor at the University of New South Wales, and a senior author, said: "By 2050, vision loss is projected to affect 1.7 billion people because of population growth and ageing, especially in low- and middle-income countries. Significant additional investments and concerted actions are urgently needed to reverse this trend and provide quality services to everyone, including to the vulnerable and currently neglected populations."
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