World Sight Day (WSD) is an annual day of awareness held on the second Thursday of October each year. WSD aims to focus global attention on blindness and vision impairment. The International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB) members work together to raise public awareness of blindness and vision impairment, influence governments to participate and designate funds for national blindness prevention funds, and to educate target audiences about blindness prevention. World Sight Day 2020 takes place on October 8th. This year’s theme and call to action is: “Hope in Sight”.
More than a billion people cannot see well, because they don’t have access to glasses. Over 3 out of 4 of the world’s vision impaired are avoidably so.
Globally in 2020 at least 2.2 billion people have a vision impairment that may or may not be addressed. Of those, at least 1 billion people have a vision impairment that could have been prevented or has yet to be addressed. Additionally, 2.6 billion people have myopia, including 312 million children under 19 years of age.
285 million people are estimated to be visually impaired worldwide: 39 million are blind and 246 million have low vision.
Studies show that additionally, millions of people are living with eye conditions that increase their risk of sight loss:
- 196 million people living with age-related macular degeneration
- 146 million people living with diabetic retinopathy
- 76 million people living with glaucoma
- 5 million people living with trachomatous trichiasis
- 277 million people living with high myopia
World Sight Day (WSD) is a great day for awareness-raising and informing the population of the causes of avoidable blindness and means to decrease them. If the focus is cataract, glaucoma, refractive errors, or diabetic retinopathy, it all begins with routine eye exams.
As ambassadors of eye health, Optos would like to encourage you, eye care practitioners to participate in World Sight Day by reminding their patients to maintain a regular schedule for comprehensive eye exams including optomap. optomap is the only ultra-widefield (UWF™) retinal image that can capture vortex ampullae in all four quadrants in a single-capture UWF image in less than ½ second.
With the ability to view up to 200 degrees of the retina, eye care professionals may be able to diagnose eye pathologies earlier than with other imaging systems, contributing to greater success in preventable vision loss and blindness. View our ultra-widefield imaging devices and contact us to learn how we can help your practice.