World sight day: A veritable avenue for vision screening towards attaining the goals of VISION 2020 in Nigeria.

Background: World sight day is marked yearly and provides the opportunity to create awareness about eye health. The global event can also serve as an avenue to appraise impacts of health promotions and interventions on blindness prevention. Aim: To determine the prevalence of blindness and common ocular conditions among the studied population. Materials and methods: It was a cross-sectional study involving workers at Uyo Mechanic Villageand University of Uyo Teaching Hospital. Instrument was developed in line with study’s objectives. Subjects’ responses to questionnaires and ocular assessment formed the core of data generated which was analyzed by Statistical Package for Social Sciences (version 20.0)Observation: A total of 121 males and 280 females with a ratio of 1:2.3 were analyzed. Age rangewas from 18 years to 66 years with a mean of 39.8+9.2 years. Prevalence of blindness was 1%. Intraocular pressure, indicated in 81 subjects, ranged from 11 to 33 mmHg with a mean of 16.2+4.8 mmHg. Absolute glaucoma was recorded in 5 patients (1.2%), 71 patients (17.7%) were glaucoma suspects and 19 patients (4.7%) had glaucoma. Refractive error 167 (41.6%) was the commonest finding. Statistical analysis of data revealed no significant relationship between sex and diagnoses (p value = 7.967, X2= 0.826, 95% CI =0.821-0.836) or age and diagnoses (p value = 509.522,X2=0.601, 95% CI = 0.591-0.510). Conclusion: Refractive errors were the commonest ocular finding in the population studied.

Millennium development goals and eye health.

In September 2000, world leaders made a commitment to build a more equitable, prosperous and safer world by 2015 and launched the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). In the previous year, the World Health Organization and the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness in partnership launched the global initiative to eliminate avoidable blindness by the year 2020–VISION 2020 the Right to Sight. It has focused on the prevention of a disability-blindness and recognized a health issue–sight as a human right. Both global initiatives have made considerable progress with synergy especially on MDG 1–the reduction of poverty and the reduction in numbers of the blind. A review of the MDGs has identified the need to address disparities within and between countries, quality, and disability. Noncommunicable diseases are emerging as a challenge to the MDGs and Vision 2020:0 the Right to Sight. For the future, up to and beyond 2015, there will be need for both initiatives to continue to work in synergy to address present and emerging challenges.

The accomplishments of the global initiative VISION 2020: The Right to Sight and the focus for the next 8 years of the campaign.

In the first 12 years of VISION 2020 sound programmatic approaches have been developed that are capable of delivering equitable eye health services to even the most remote and impoverished communities. A body of evidence around the economic arguments for investment in eye health has been developed that has fuelled successful advocacy work resulting in supportive high level policy statements. More than a 100 national plans to achieve the elimination of avoidable blindness have been developed and some notable contributions made from the corporate and government sectors to resource eye health programs. Good progress has been made to control infectious blinding diseases and at the very least there is anecdotal evidence to suggest that the global increase in the prevalence of blindness and visual impairment has been reversed in recent years, despite the ever increasing and more elderly global population. However if we are to achieve the goal of VISION 2020 we require a considerable scaling up of current efforts–this will depend on our future success in two key areas: i) Successful advocacy and engagement at individual country level to secure significantly enhanced national government commitment to financing their own VISION 2020 plans.ii) A new approach to VISION 2020 thinking that integrates eye health into health system development and develops new partnerships with wider health development initiatives.

Training of an ophthalmologist in concepts and practice of community eye health.

Training in community eye health (CEH; public health applied to ophthalmology) complements clinical ophthalmology knowledge and enhances the physician's ability to meet the needs at the individual and community level in the context of VISION 2020. The upcoming version of the ophthalmological residency curriculum that was developed by the International Council of Ophthalmology (ICO) includes a new, specific section on CEH. It has basic, standard, advanced and very advanced levels of goals (the last one is exclusively for fellows/master students), and provides a public health approach to the main causes of blindness and low vision. The number of individuals aged ≥60 years is increasing twice as fast as the number of ophthalmologists, and as this age group is more likely to become blind/visually impaired, accessibility to eye care in the near future might be suboptimal even in wealthier countries. In order to achieve VISION 2020 goals, it is necessary to train more ophthalmologists and other eye care workers. However, the adoption of CEH component of the ICO curriculum for ophthalmology residents will enable them to meet local needs for eye care.

La baja visión en Colombia y en el mundo / Low vision in Colombia and the world

La visión es uno de los sentidos más significativos del hombre, pues es la ventana al universo exterior. El individuo en esencia se considera un ser visual, es por eso que toda persona posee el derecho a la visión. En Colombia son pocas las investigaciones en baja visión (definida como una reducción importante de la función visual que no puede ser totalmente corregida por gafas,lentes de contacto, tratamiento médico o quirúrgico, y generalmente interfiere con actividades como cocinar, leer y escribir, conducir un auto o caminar), siendo esta una de las razones por las cuales hay desconocimiento de su prevalencia, incidencia, principales causas, el manejo interdisciplinario de estos pacientes y el impacto socioeconómico que genera esta discapacidad en el país. La Organización Mundial de la Salud (OMS) refiere la existencia de millones de personas ciegas y con déficit visual en el mundo, de los cuales la mayoría viven en países en vía de desarrollo.Según un registro realizado por el DANE, a marzo del 2009 revela 231.072 personas con discapacidad visual en Colombia. El propósito de este artículo de revisión es mostrar la situación que se está presentando en Colombia y en el mundo en relación a la baja visión.

Vision is one of the most important senses to man because it is the window to the outside world. An individual, in essence, is considered to be a visual being, which is why every person has the right to vision. There is not a lot of research in Colombia about low vision (defined as a significant reduction of visual function that cannot be fully corrected by eye glasses, contact lenses, medical treatment or surgery, and which usually interferes with daily activities such as cooking, reading and writing, driving a car or walking). This is one of the reasons why there is so much ignorance about its prevalence, incidence, main causes, interdisciplinary management of these patients and the socio-economic impact generated by this disability in the country. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), millions of people around the world are blind or visually impaired, most living in developing countries. A report by the National Administrative Department of Statistics (DANE, for its initials in Spanish) shows that there are 231,072 people with visual disabilities in Colombia as of March, 2009. The purpose of this review article is to show the current situation in Colombia and the world in regards to low vision.