VISION 2020: A global alliance
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© CBM
Christian Garms, former Executive Director of CBM, speaks at the Vision 2020 Launch in Kabul, Afghanistan
In 1999 CBM was one of the founding organisations to launch VISION 2020, a global initiative to eliminate avoidable blindness by the year 2020.
What is VISION 2020?
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VISION 2020 is the global initiative for the elimination of avoidable blindness, a joint programme of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB) with an international membership of NGOs, professional associations, eye care institutions and corporations.
2010 UPDATE - VISION 2020 IS WORKING! 10% decrease in worldwide blindness and visual impairment
The need
- There are 37 million blind people and over 124 million with low vision, comprising a total of over 161 million people with visual impairment in our world today.
- Every 5 seconds one person in the world goes blind, and a child goes blind every minute. 75% of all blindness is avoidable, either through prevention or treatment. 90% of all avoidable blindness occurs in developing countries. According to estimates, most blind people live in India: 9 million. 7 million live in Africa and 6 million in China.
Why a global alliance?
The VISION 2020 initiative, if successfully implemented, will prevent over 100 million people from going blind.
The economic gain in terms of increased productivity is conservatively estimated at over US$100 billion.
The latest figures suggest that VISION 2020 has already had a significant impact on global blindness with several countries documenting a reduction in the prevalence of blindness.
The economic gain in terms of increased productivity is conservatively estimated at over US$100 billion.
The latest figures suggest that VISION 2020 has already had a significant impact on global blindness with several countries documenting a reduction in the prevalence of blindness.
What does VISION 2020 look like on the ground?
The VISION 2020 strategy is to implement eye care services as an integrated part of general health care through 'district level' eye care teams who are appropriately trained and equipped to provide primary and secondary level services for a population of approximately one million people.
This 'community and district level' model is replicated to develop a national programme, so that a country of 20 million people may have about 20 such “district” eye care teams/units and programmes. Therefore each 'community and district' programme consists of three main components delivered as a part of a comprehensive, integrated and sustainable eye care service:
This 'community and district level' model is replicated to develop a national programme, so that a country of 20 million people may have about 20 such “district” eye care teams/units and programmes. Therefore each 'community and district' programme consists of three main components delivered as a part of a comprehensive, integrated and sustainable eye care service:
- Human resource development to train an eye care team and community workers.
- Infrastructure development to equip the team with the medicines, instruments etc.
- Disease control targeted at the main preventable diseases in that community.
Main current priorities
- Cataract (an eye disease of ageing), causing nearly 50% of global blindness.
- Eye infections (trachoma and onchocerciasis), visual loss in children (xerophthalmia), causing approximately 10% of blindness worldwide.
- Refractive errors and low vision.
- Other potentially preventable and/or treatable causes of visual loss such as diabetic retinopathy and glaucoma can be included, on a country by country basis, as determined by the local situation.
