This World Sight Day, the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB) and its members are launching the IAPB Vision Atlas that brings all the latest data and ideas on blindness prevention to one place.
The Atlas makes the complex science and data behind these trends accessible through maps, infographics and expert commentary. Building on the latest prevalence data, the IAPB Vision Atlas will exclusively host prevalence data by country, from 1990 to 2015, and will also include projections to 2020. It will also include success indicators (Cataract Surgical Coverage, number of eye health personnel and more) towards achieving the WHO Global Action Plan.
Armed with the Vision Atlas, governments across the world can be convinced that we need to step up efforts to improve eye care and access to eye care.
The Vision Atlas is available at http://atlas.iapb.org/ with an updated version being released on World Sight Day, October 12th 2017.
Key information from the Vision Atlas:
- In 2015, nearly 1.35 billion people have significant levels of vision loss.
- Most of this is preventable or treatable. Between 1990 and 2015, data shows that 90 million fewer people were vision impaired than was expected—so we know how to combat vision loss.
- Governments and civil society need to do more because, if current efforts continue without more investment and action, 115 million people are estimated to go blind by 2050—a threefold increase from 2015 figures.
- Three trends—a growing and aging population; a steep increase in Myopia; and a spike in Diabetic Retinopathy—are the main causes for this escalation.
