Global Blindness: The Progress We Are Making and Still Need to Make

Abstract

The actual numbers of people blind or with poor vision continue to increase despite so excellent progress that is being made in reducing the prevalence or percentage of people affected. More attention is required to provide quality outcomes for cataract surgery, prevent and manage myopia, detect and treat diabetic retinopathy, glaucoma, and age-related macular degeneration (AMD). Although more ophthalmologists are needed to provide this eye care, it is important that ophthalmologists work in effective teams with allied eye health personal to be able to meet the community needs.

FIGURE 1

Demonstrated significant decrease in rates of blindness in all regions between 1990 and 2015 created from data in Flaxman SR, Bourne RRA, Resnikoff S, et al. Global causes of blindness and distance vision impairment 1990–2020: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Lancet Glob Health 2017; 5: e1221-e1234. AMD indicates age-related macular degeneration.

FIGURE 2

Percentage of diagnosed causes of blindness and vision impairment created from data in Flaxman SR, Bourne RRA, Resnikoff S, et al. Global causes of blindness and distance vision impairment 1990–2020: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Lancet Glob Health 2017; 5: e1221-e1234. AMD indicates age–related macular degeneration.

FIGURE 3

Modeled prevalence of myopia by age for East Asians by selected country of residence from a systematic review and quantitative meta-analysis adjusted to the year 2005 (except for Mongolia, which is 2003), first appearing in Wolffsohn JS, Flitcroft DI, G KL, et al. IMI - Myopia Control Reports Overview and Introduction. Invest Ophalmol Vis Sci. 2019; 60: M1-M19. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

FIGURE 4

Estimated prevalence (%) of primary open angle glaucoma with age for men and women combined by ethnicity. A, shows prevalence on the y axis on the normal scale; B, on the log scale. Coloured lines come from regression models adjusting for age (log-linear relationship), fitted separately for White (green), Black (blue), East Asian (orange), South Asian (purple), Southeast Asian (navy), Hispanic or Latino (brown), and other or mixed ethnicity (pink) groups. Solid lines are given across the age range of available data for each ethnic group, first appearing in Kapetanakis VV, Chan MPY, Foster PJ, et al. Global variations and time trends in the prevalence of primary open angle glaucoma (POAG): a systematic review and meta-analysis. Br J Ophthalmol Published Online first 18 August 2015; doi:10.1136/bjophthalmol2015-307223. This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.

FIGURE 5

Numbers of cataract surgeries conducted in India between 1985 and 2018 created from data in Directorate General of Health Services, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Government of India. National Program for Control of Blindness & Visual Impairment (NPCBVI) Statistics [National Program for Control of Blindness & Visual Impairment (NPCBVI) web site]. September 24, 2012. Available at: http://npcb.nic.in/index1.asp?linkid=93&langid=1. Accessed May 15, 2019.

FIGURE 6

Cataract surgical coverage (CSC) and effective cataract surgical coverage (eCSC; persons first appearing in Ramke J, Gilbert CE, Lee AC, et al. Effective cataract surgical coverage: An indicator for measuring quality-of-care in the context of Universal Health Coverage. PLoS One. 2017; 12: e0172342-e0172342. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.