Facts & Figures

What is blindness and visual impairment?
Visual impairment is divided into low vision and blindness.

The definition of low vision is a visual acuity of less than 6/18, but more than 3/60 or visual field loss to less than 20 degrees. This means that the individual has significantly decreased visual perception.

The definition of blindness is visual acuity of less than 3/60 or visual field loss to less than 10 degrees. This means that the patient has severe or total loss of visual perception. The individual may or may not be able to perceive light, which is the ability to differentiate between light and dark.

How prevalent is visual impairment?
The latest worldwide estimates from the World Health Organization are that more than 161 million people are visually impaired. Of those, 37 million are blind and 124 million have low vision. Based on the latest estimates, a child goes blind every minute, and an adult every 5 seconds.

Visual impairment is unequally distributed across countries, age groups and genders:

­bullet.gif­ Greater than 90% of the world's visually impaired live in developing countries
Over 90% of blind individuals live in areas with no access to quality eye care at an affordable price
Although 82% of blind people are aged 50 years or older, there is a significant prevalence of childhood blindness as well
Over 1.4 million children below the age of 15 are blind
Vitamin A deficiency is a prevalent cause of preventable blindness in children, with an estimated 250,000 to 500,000 children annually becoming blind due to this nutritional deficiency
In every developing country and at all ages, females are at significantly higher risk of being visually impaired than males

What is the impact of treating and preventing visual impairment?
Treating and preventing visual impairment aims to empower individuals and enable them to participate in society. Performing everyday activities is highly dependent on the sense of sight.

Helping visually impaired children see enables them to pursue education more easily. These children potentially have a better opportunity to escape from poverty and improve their livelihoods. There is a strong correlation between literacy rates and poverty, indicating that education is a highly effective intervention in the alleviation of poverty.

Furthermore, restoring the sight of visually impaired adults enables them to participate in working life. These adults will have a greater opportunity in pursuing a more diverse range of occupations, with potentially higher salaries. In addition, the ability to see allows individuals to perform household work more easily. Restoring the sight of adults leads to greater health and wealth for both the family and the community, beyond the human interpersonal elements that touch each member of the family and the community.

Ultimately, the treatment and prevention of visual impairment has a major impact on the well being of individuals, communities and nations.

References:
World Health Organization

International Council of Ophthalmology "International Standards: Visual Standards - Aspects and Ranges of Vision Loss with Emphasis on Population Surveys." April 2002.

Helen Keller International