This day marks World Sight Day, and organizations from all corners of the optical industry around the world gather to make their voices count. World Sight Day (WSD) is an annual day of global awareness on blindness and vision impairment co-ordinated by IAPB under the VISION 2020 Global Initiative.
Based on a new global data report published by IAPB Vision Atlas, 253 million people are visually impaired while 89% of these people live in low- and middle-income countries. Moreover, localised and restricted environment in marginalized communities, such as ill-planned infrastructure and technological barriers, confers eye health challenges to children. According to a case study conducted in South Africa, almost half of all children in Africa’s schools for the blind merely need a pair of spectacles. In a randomized clinical myopia trial in Taiwan and China, 40 to 80 minutes of additional outdoor time during the day in primary school children reduced myopia incidence by 23% to 50%.
For this reason, Eyezone Institute of Opticianry and Eyezone Magazine are joining hands with Our Children’s Vision, a global campaign with a shared goal to screen 50 million children worldwide for vision impairments by 2020, in order to spread awareness of eye care issues and encourage individuals and establishments to support the provision of effective eye care services to children whose lives were impacted by blindness and visual impairment.
