World Sight Day 2014
World Sight Day 2014 is on 9 October 2014 (the second Thursday of October). World Sight Day 2013 saw numerous organizations putting together events of great verve and colour to draw attention to avoidable blindness and rehabilitation. 2014 is the first year of the WHO Global Action Plan and IAPB encourages our members and partners to continue with our rolling theme:
Universal Eye Health
This year, the 'Call to Action' for World Sight Day is:
No more Avoidable Blindness
Visual impairment and blindness
285 million people are estimated to be visually impaired worldwide: 39 million are blind and 246 have low vision.
About 90% of the world's visually impaired live in low-income settings.
82% of people living with blindness are aged 50 and above.
Globally, uncorrected refractive errors are the main cause of moderate and severe visual impairment; cataracts remain the leading cause of blindness in middle- and low-income countries.
The number of people visually impaired from infectious diseases has reduced in the last 20 years according to global estimates work.
80% of all visual impairment can be prevented or cured.
Definitions
There are 4 levels of visual function, according to the International Classification of Diseases -10 (Update and Revision 2006):
normal vision
moderate visual impairment
severe visual impairment
blindness.
Moderate visual impairment combined with severe visual impairment are grouped under the term “low vision”: low vision taken together with blindness represents all visual impairment.
The causes of visual impairment
Globally the major causes of visual impairment are:
uncorrected refractive errors (myopia, hyperopia or astigmatism), 43 %
unoperated cataract, 33%
glaucoma, 2%.
Who is at risk?
Approximately 90% of visually impaired people live in developing countries.
People aged 50 and over
About 65 % of all people who are visually impaired are aged 50 and older, while this age group comprises about 20 % of the world's population. With an increasing elderly population in many countries, more people will be at risk of visual impairment due to chronic eye diseases and ageing processes.
Children below age 15
An estimated 19 million children are visually impaired. Of these, 12 million children are visually impaired due to refractive errors, a condition that could be easily diagnosed and corrected. 1.4 million are irreversibly blind for the rest of their lives and need visual rehabilitation interventions for a full psychological and personal development.
Changes over the last twenty years
Overall, visual impairment worldwide has decreased since the early estimates in 1990s. This is despite an ageing global elderly population. This decrease is principally the result of a reduction in visual impairment from infectious diseases through:
overall socioeconomic development;
concerted public health action;
increased availability of eye care services;
awareness of the general population about solutions to the problems related to visual impairment (surgery, refraction devices, etc.).
The global response to prevent blindness
Globally, 80% of all visual impairment can be prevented or cured. Areas of progress over the last 20 years include:
governments established national programmes and regulations to prevent and control visual impairment;
eye care services increasingly available and progressively integrated into primary and secondary health care systems, with a focus on the provision of services that are high quality, available and affordable;
campaigns to educate about visual function importance and raise awareness, including school-based education; and
stronger government leadership on international partnerships, with increasing engagement of the private sector.
Data over the last 20 years shows that there has been significant progress in preventing and curing visual impairment in many countries. Furthermore, the massive reduction in onchocerciasis- and trachoma-related blindness is part of a significant reduction in the disease distribution and has substantially reduced the burden resulting from these infectious diseases. This has been achieved through a number of successful international public-private partnerships.
Specific achievements include:
Brazil which in the last decade has been providing eye care services through the national social security system;
Morocoo which has launched a public effort to control glaucoma;
China which has invested over 100 million dollars in cataract surgeries since 2009;
Oman has completely integrated eye care service provision in the primary health care framework over the last decade; and
India since 1995 has made available funds for eye care service provision for the poorest at district level.
The largest civil society effort to prevent and cure blinding disease and rehabilitate people whose irreversibly visually impaired or blind is the SightFirst programme of the International Association of the Lions Club (LIONS). Among others, this programme supports the largest initiative to develop child eye care centres (45 national reference paediatric centres established in 35 countries so far), implemented in partnership with WHO.
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