300 million will have impaired vision in 2020

UN Chronicle, Summer, 1997

Experts of the World Health Organization (WHO) have warned that within the next quarter of a century blindness and serious visual disability - already a public health problem - will become a major socio-economic burden worldwide and may even thwart progress in some middle- and low-income countries. To curb this trend, a new global initiative is needed, bringing together international organizations, Governments, non-governmental development organizations and industry.

If national and international efforts to avert blindness and visual disability are not intensified, the number of people with significant visual disability will double by the year 2020. Currently, close to 150 million people worldwide suffer from significant visual disability, 38 million of whom are blind. WHO experts say that more than two thirds of this blindness and visual disability could be avoided through adequate and timely prevention or treatment. At present, approximately 7 million people become blind each year. over 70 percent of these people receive treatment and their vision is restored. Thus, the number of blind persons worldwide is currently increasing by up to 2 million per year. Eighty per cent of these new cases are related to ageing.

Demographics trends indicate that, by the year 2020, the number of elderly persons (60 years of age and above) will almost double and reach 1.2 billion. Consequently, experts project that by that time there will be about 54 million blind people aged 60 and over, 50 million of them in developing countries. The total number of blind persons in other age groups is projected to be over 21 million.

Major age-related avoidable causes of blindness and visual disability include cataract (which accounts for around 16 million blind people), glaucoma (5.2 million), and diabetic retinopathy (around 2 million).

These diseases have come to the forefront as the number of people affected by trachoma (about 6 million blind), xerophthalmia (blindness due to vitamin A deficiency) and onchocerciasis, or "river blindness", has been gradually reduced. However, the latter conditions still remain important causes of preventable blindness in some regions of the world. Where they have been endemic in the past, blindness and visual impairment may persist or even increase with ageing, as in trachoma-related blindness.

By 2020, as a result of this demographic and epidemiological transition, the burden of disabling eye diseases will increase in absolute terms. So will the consequent need and demand for eye-care services. The costs for eye care and surgery are also expected to escalate because of increased demand and as a result of the introduction of new technologies.