World Sight Day >>Wsd-06 Fact Sheet

World Sight Day, 12th October 2006

VISION 2020 – The Facts

 ‘Every five seconds one person in our world goes blind… and a child goes blind every minute’
VISION 2020: The Right to Sight aims to eliminate avoidable blindness by the year 2020
GLOBAL BLINDNESS STATISTICS

• An estimated 37 million people are blind and 124 million have low vision, comprising a total of 161 million people with serious visual impairment. In addition, millions of people are functionally blind due to uncorrected refractive error.
• The successful implementation of the VISION 2020: The Right to Sight initiative will prevent 100 million people from losing their sight by the year 2020.
• 75% of blindness is avoidable, either through treatment or preventive measures
• 90% of blind people live in developing countries
• Restoration of sight and methods of preventing blindness are amongst the most cost-effective of all health care interventions

VISION 2020: The Right to Sight – A GLOBAL INITATIVE

• VISION 2020: the Right to Sight is a global initiative of the World Health Organization (WHO), representing national governments, and the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB), representing an international coalition of Non-Governmental Organisations, professional bodies, research and training institutes and other eye care organisations.  VISION 2020 aims to eliminate unnecessary blindness in order to give all people in the world, and particularly the millions of needlessly blind, the Right to Sight.
• VISION 2020: the Right to Sight secured the support of all WHO Member Governments at the 56th World Health Assembly, May 2003.  A Resolution was passed urging Governments to develop a National VISION 2020 Prevention of Blindness Plan by the year 2005, to implement it by 2007, and have evaluated results by 2010.  Governments pledged to join the fight against avoidable blindness and WHO is asked to play an integral part in this process and to report back on the success of the Resolution at the 59th World Health Assembly. 
• Blindness is not just a health issue; it is an issue of poverty, with grave economic and social impacts. The successful implementation of the VISION 2020 initiative will result in an estimated saving of US$223 billion in lost productivity around the world.
• VISION 2020: The Right to Sight aims to achieve its objectives
• Increasing awareness of visual impairment as a major public health issue
• Mobilising new and existing resources in support of the VISION 2020 initiative
• Controlling the major causes of avoidable blindness including Cataract, Trachoma, Onchocerciasis, and Childhood Blindness
• Making assistive services, including low vision devices and spectacles, available at affordable prices to people suffering from impaired vision and refractive error
• Training sufficient eye care workers to treat even the most remote and poor communities of the world
• Facilitating the creation of infrastructure, country by country, to ensure that high quality, affordable and sustainable eye care is available to all

WE NEED YOUR SUPPORT!
To achieve the ultimate goal of eliminating avoidable blindness by the year 2020, VISION 2020: The Right to Sight needs the commitment and support of governments, health care workers, eye care professionals, business corporations, development and funding bodies to make needless blindness a thing of the past.