Millions of vision problems still live without glasses
Millions of people with myopia, presbyopia or other refractive abnormalities remain without access to glasses, a problem that further exacerbates poverty by preventing effective work.
Study published in Lancet Global Healthbased on data for 815,000 people in 76 countries, finds that only 65.8% of people with refractive abnormalities wear proper glasses.
This percentage is only 6 percentage points higher than in 2010, said researchers at Anglia Raskin University in Cambridge.
The findings, emphasize, make it doubtful to achieve the goal set by the World Health Organization in 2021, according to which the ratio of people who have access to glasses should be increased by 40 percentage points by 2030.
« Correction of refractive abnormalities is the safest, more effective and economical intervention to improve the vision of the majority of people with visual disability worldwide. It contributes to the reduction of poverty and offers benefits for prosperity, productivity, education and equality. «
By the middle of the century half of the world population is estimated to be suffering from myopia
The study divided the data into large geographical regions: North Africa and the Middle East, sub -Saharan Africa, Latin America and Caribbean, South Asia, Southeast Asia, East Asia and Oceania, Central Europe, Eastern Europe and Central Asia and Central Asia and Central Asia.
The shortcomings are greater in low -income countries, the analysis showed. In sub -Saharan Africa, for example, the coverage rate is limited to 30% for men and 27% for women, which means that seven out of ten glasses live with limited vision.
The corresponding figure in rich countries is 85% for men and 83% for women.
Although glasses prescription increased by 50% from 2000 to 2030, the needs for glasses showed a significant increase for lifestyle -related reasons.
A typical case is myopia, which is becoming more and more frequent around the world, a phenomenon attributed to the increased stay of children in indoors and continuous eye focus on screens or other nearby objects.
Previous studies even predicted that by the middle of the century half of the earth’s population would suffer from the disorder.
The new study recognizes the efforts of some countries to increase access. In France, for example, the purchase of glasses is fully compensated by insurance funds.
