Blindness
Blindness is the inability to see. The leading causes of chronic blindness include cataract, glaucoma, age-related macular degeneration, corneal opacities, diabetic retinopathy, trachoma, and eye conditions in children (e.g. caused by vitamin A deficiency). Age-related blindness is increasing throughout the world, as is blindness due to uncontrolled diabetes. On the other hand, blindness caused by infection is decreasing, as a result of public health action. Eiighty percent of all blindness can be prevented or treated.
- Somewhere in the world, someone goes blind every five seconds.
- A child goes blind every minute.
- Eighty percent of all blindness is preventable or curable.
- It is estimated that at least 7 million people go blind every year.
- Worldwide some 180 million people are blind or visually disabled—the equivalent of two-thirds of the entire U.S. population.
- Rates of blindness will double by the year 2020 unless prevention efforts are intensified.
- People in developing countries represent 90 percent of the world's blind population and are 10 times more likely to go blind than those in developed countries.
- Africa averages just one ophthalmologist for every 1.25 million people.
