VISION 2020: The Right to Sight

Abstract

A n estimated 45 million people around the world are blind. 1 Most of them have lost their sight to diseases that are treatable or preventable. Eighty percent of them live in the lesser-developed world in countries where chronic economic deprivation is exacerbated by the added challenge of failing vision. Without intervention, the number of individuals with blindness might reach 76 million by 2020 because of a number of factors, primarily the rapid aging of populations in most countries. 2 Since eye disease is seen largely in older people, the projected doubling of the world's population older than 50 years to 2 billion by 2020 has profound effects on the number of those with blindness and low vision.

Visual impairment and blindness: an overview of prevalence and causes in Brazil

“…The objective is to improve cataract surgical rates, detection and treatment of retinopathy of prematurity and low vision and refractive services (Pizzarello et al 2004).…”

“…Visual impairment, which may be defined as blindness (best-corrected vision of < 20/ 400 in the better vision eye, by the World Health Organization [WHO]) or low vision (best-corrected vision < 20/60 in the better vision eye according to WHO), is one of the most common disabilities: currently, there are worldwide an estimated 37 million people with blindness and 124 million people with low vision ). Most of them have lost their sight to diseases that are treatable or preventable (Pizzarello et al 2004).…”

“…In response to this global need, the WHO launched in 1999 the Vision 2020: The Right to Sight, an initiative in partnership with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and eye care organizations (Pararajasegaram 1999). Vision 2020 aims to eliminate avoidable blindness in the world by 2020 and targets the world's leading causes of avoidable visual impairment (Pizzarello et al 2004). Analysis of global epidemiological data on the pattern of blindness indicates that up to 75% of the cases are avoidable.…”

To the Question of School Myopia

“…По данным Всемир-ной организации здравоохранения, число людей, стра-дающих миопией, в развитых странах варьирует от 10 до 90%. В России более 10% населения близоруки, в то время как в США и Европе таких пациентов более 25%, а в странах Азии этот показатель достигает 80% [11,12].…”

“…Всемирная организация здравоохранения избрала низ-кое зрение при неисправленных аномалиях рефракции одним из ведущих направлений по ликвидации предот-вратимой слепоты к 2020 году [11,12]. Некорригиро-ванная миопия создает трудности при выполнении зри-тельной работы, снижает профессиональную адаптацию и ухудшает качество жизни [13,14].…”