Blindness and vision impairment - World Health Organization (WHO)
Aug 10, 2023 · Globally, at least 2.2 billion people have a near or distance vision impairment. In at least 1 billion of these, vision impairment could have been prevented or is yet to be addressed. The leading causes of vision impairment and blindness at a global level are refractive errors and cataracts. It is estimated that globally only 36% of people with ...
Eye care, vision impairment and blindness - World Health …
May 26, 2024 · Vision impairment and blindness impact the life of people everywhere. In low- and middle-income settings the burden of vision impairment can be even greater due to fewer opportunities to access the most essential eye care services. Cataracts and uncorrected refractive errors are estimated to be the leading causes of vision impairment; however ...
World report on vision - World Health Organization (WHO)
Oct 8, 2019 · At present at least 2.2 billion people around the world have a vision impairment, of whom at least 1 billion have a vision impairment that could have been prevented or is yet to be addressed. The world faces considerable challenges in terms of eye care, including inequalities in the coverage and quality of prevention, treatment and rehabilitation services; a shortage of …
Smoking linked to early vision loss and cataracts
Oct 20, 2022 · Smoking linked to early vision loss and cataracts. A new brief finds that smokers stand to develop age-related macular degeneration up to 5.5 years earlier than non-smokers. This blurs a person’s central vision making it difficult for them to do everyday tasks like reading or driving. The brief was developed by WHO, together with the ...
Eye health, vision impairment and blindness - World Health …
Oct 8, 2019 · Eye health, vision impairment and blindness. In the Western Pacific Region, over 90 million people experience visual impairment, including 10 million that are blind. Blindness can be avoided in 8 out of 10 cases with appropriate treatment or early prevention. Eye health can be promoted through the integration of comprehensive eye-care services ...
Vision and hearing loss - World Health Organization (WHO)
Jan 30, 2023 · Vision and hearing interventions are some of the most cost-effective that exist, yet they are too frequently difficult to access and poorly integrated into health services. The impact of vision and hearing loss is also influenced by other coexisting conditions. Dual sensory loss (deafblindness) affects 0.2–2.0% of the global population ...
Governments commit to accelerate action to improve access to …
Jul 23, 2021 · Governments adopted a new resolution at the United Nations General Assembly, committing to greater efforts to make eye care services an integral part of universal health coverage and address the increasing impact of vision loss on sustainable development.Over 2 billion people globally are living with vision impairment or blindness and at least 1.1 billion …
WHO launches first World report on vision - World Health …
Oct 8, 2019 · Русский. Español. More than 1 billion people worldwide are living with vision impairment because they do not get the care they need for conditions like short and far sightedness, glaucoma and cataract, according to the first World report on vision issued by the World Health Organization. The report, launched ahead of World Sight Day on ...
Tobacco and vision loss - World Health Organization (WHO)
Oct 12, 2022 · This document is the sixth in a series of Tobacco Knowledge Summaries. This document is prepared with the objective to summarize the current evidence on the association between tobacco use and vision loss. This is also intended as an advocacy tool to widely include health care professionals, in particular ophthalmologists, optometrists and ...
Onchocerciasis - World Health Organization (WHO)
Jan 11, 2022 · Onchocerciasis – or “river blindness” – is a parasitic disease caused by the filarial worm Onchocerca volvulus transmitted by repeated bites of infected blackflies (Simulium spp.). These blackflies breed along fast-flowing rivers and streams, close to remote villages located near fertile land where people rely on agriculture.