Blindness in children: control priorities and research opportunities.

نویسندگان

  • C Gilbert
  • A Foster
چکیده

Vision 2020 The World Heath Organization and the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness in 1999 jointly launched “Vision 2020—the right to sight.” This ambitious programme, to eliminate unnecessary blindness and promote good vision throughout the world, includes the control of blindness in children as one of its first five priorities. Given that there are estimated to be 45 million blind people, of whom only 3% are children, this may seem to be inappropriate. However, childhood blindness is important because of “years of blindness”: the patient with blindness due to macular degeneration will have a limited number of years of visual loss, but the child who goes blind today is likely to still be with us in 2050. The concept of “blind years saved” is useful when it comes to allocation of resources, as it can be argued that restoring the sight of one child blind from cataract is equivalent to restoring the sight of 10 elderly adults blind from cataract. Children, therefore, deserve special attention.

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عنوان ژورنال:
  • The British journal of ophthalmology

دوره 85 9  شماره 

صفحات  -

تاریخ انتشار 2001