Vision 2020: the right to sight.

oday, there are 45 million blind people in the world, and cataract, which is one of the most important causes of blindness, accounts for half of the blindness. Moreover, trachoma and childhood blindness are responsible for 15% and 4% of all blindness respectively. Besides, other important causes of blindness in our region are uncorrected refractive error, glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy and age related macular degeneration. Among all the blindness, 80% are avoidable which means it is either preventable or curable. An innumerable number of blind people reside in this region, and a study found that about one third of the world’s blind and half of the world’s 1.5 million blind children live in this region alone. It is quite disheartening to know the fact that among 12 people who go blind every minute in the world, 4 are from South East Asia.