WCO Myopia Management Standard of Care Pledge Challenge Reaches 50,000

Thursday, August 10 2023 | 13 h 22 min | News

The World Council of Optometry (WCO) Myopia Management Standard of Care Pledge challenge is setting a new goal after having reached an important milestone. Since the pledge challenge was launched last year, 130 global eye care organizations and 50,375 individuals have so far pledged to adopt myopia management as the standard of care.

The organization, in partnership with myopia management category leader CooperVision, has set a new goal of 100,000 pledges.

Learn more and take the pledge HERE.

WCO President-elect Dr. Sandra Block said, “The response among optometrists, eye health researchers, contact lens marketers and optometry students worldwide to adopt myopia management as the global standard of care has been amazing. Individual and organizational pledges to date span 86 countries and all continents in the world. We are delighted to see so many are responding to the challenge and encourage those who haven’t yet to take the pledge today.”

The World Council of Optometry introduced the myopia management standard of care resolution in April 2021, defining an evidence-based standard of care comprised of three main components:

• Mitigation — Optometrists educating and counseling parents and children, during early and regular eye exams, on lifestyle, dietary, and other factors to prevent or delay the onset of myopia.
• Measurement — Optometrists evaluating the status of a patient during regular comprehensive vision and eye health exams, such as measuring refractive error and axial length whenever possible.
• Management — Optometrists addressing patients’ needs of today by correcting myopia, while also providing evidence-based interventions (e.g., contact lenses, spectacles, pharmaceuticals) that slow the progression of myopia, for improved quality of life and better eye health today and into the future.

The World Council of Optometry has a myopia management online resource featuring the standard of care resolution, pledge signup page, multimedia resources and practical tools and information for optometrists available HERE.

Click HERE for the full press release.

For more articles on the WCO, click HERE.