Globally, at least 1 billion people have near or distance vision impairment that could be prevented or has yet to be addressed. Vision impairment affects people of all ages, with the majority being over the age of 50.

Vision impairment and blindness can have major and long-lasting effects on all aspects of life, including daily personal activities, interacting with the community, school and work opportunities and the ability to access public services, the World Health Organization (WHO) said.

A 40 per cent increase in effective coverage of refractive errors and a 30 per cent increase in effective coverage of cataract surgery was recently adopted at the 74th World Health Assembly. Member states or countries adopted these two new global targets for eye care by 2030.

The above targets will play a key role in not only increasing global eye care coverage in the future but also in delivering quality services.

Moreover, according to the WHO, vision impairment poses an enormous global financial burden with the annual global costs of productivity losses associated with vision impairment from uncorrected myopia and presbyopia alone estimated to be US$ 244 billion and US$ 25.4 billion respectively.

Vision impairment has both personal and economic impacts. #NPC-CPD