Lenmed celebrates World Sight Day
Lenmed Randfontein Private Hospital marked World Sight Day by offering three pro bono cararact procedures.
Lenmed Randfontein Private Hospital marked World Sight Day 2018 on Thursday 11 October, by offering three pro bono cataract procedures.
World Sight Day is an internationally recognised day of awareness held annually on the second Thursday of October to focus attention on the global issue of avoidable blindness and visual impairment. This year’s theme was the ‘Eye Care Everywhere’.
Dr Raman Abdulla, ophthalmologist at the Lenmed Randfontein Private Hospital gave the following lesser-known facts about eye care:
• An estimated 36 million people are blind.
• There are 217 million people with moderate or severe distance vision impairment.
• One billion people have near-vision impairment.
• The prevalence of blindness and vision impairment combined has dropped from 4,58 per cent in 1990 to 3,37 per cent in 2015.
• 89 per cent of vision impaired people live in low and middle-income countries.
• 55 per cent of moderate or severely vision impaired people are women.
• Top causes of visual impairment are refractive errors, cataracts and glaucoma.
• Top causes of blindness are cataracts, glaucoma and age-related macular degeneration.
• The number of people visually impaired from infectious diseases has greatly reduced in the last 20 years.
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