Eye care for older people

the global trend Worldwide, people are now living longer and birth rates are declining; older people are therefore making up an ever greater proportion of the world’s population. This means that the number of older people is increasing very rapidly compared to the overall growth of the global population. By 2025, there will be twice as many older people worldwide as there were in 2000 (an increase from 606 million to 1.2 billion). Twenty-five years later, by 2050, the population of older people will be three times greater than in 2000: around two billion.1 This trend will be experienced, to varying degrees, in countries all over the world. In Africa, the number of people aged 60 and above is expected to increase at double the worldwide rate; it is estimated that this population will grow from 38 million in 2000 to at least 203 million in 2050. In fact, it is estimated that 75 per cent of older people will be living in lowand middleincome countries by 2025. D ai sy W ils on Community Eye Health Journal