Title: Blindness and Low Vision, an Overview of Opportunities for Health Services and Preventive Medicine
Abstract: Nowadays in the world exists 29 million people who are blind. Low vision and blindness are the second leading cause of disability worldwide (WHO-a), but many cases are caused by preventable or treatable diseases. Health services must be prepared to face the problems that may rise, and the best way is to have knowledge of the magnitude and variety of the problems. Despite progress made in surgical techniques in many countries during the last ten years, cataract (47.9%) remains the leading cause of visual impairment in the world (except for developed countries) followed by glaucoma (12.3%), age-related macular degeneration (AMD) (8.7%), corneal opacities (5.1%), diabetic retinopathy (4.8%), childhood blindness (3.9%), trachoma (3.6%), and onchocerciasis (0.8%) Figure 1 (WHO-b) These visual impairments in general are avoidable. In the least-developed countries and in particular Sub-Saharan Africa, the causes of avoidable blindness are primarily, cataract (50%), glaucoma (15%), corneal opacities (10%), trachoma (6.8%), childhood blindness (5.3%) and onchocerciasis (4%) (WHO-b) Table 1.
Publication Year: 2015
Publication Date: 2015-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 3
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