Prevalence and Causes of Blindness and Vision Impairment: Magnitude, Temporal Trends, and Projections in South and Central Asia

Nangia, Vinay, Jonas, Jost B., George, Ronnie, Lingam, Vijaya, Ellwein, Leon B., Cicinelli, Maria V., Das, Aditi, Flaxman, Seth R., Keeffe, Jill, Kempen, John H., Leasher, Janet, Limburg, Hans, Naidoo, Kovin, Pesudovs, Konrad, Resnikoff, Serge, Silvester, Alex, Tahhan, Nina, Taylor, Hugh R., Wong, Tien Y. and Bourne, Rupert R. A. (2019) Prevalence and Causes of Blindness and Vision Impairment: Magnitude, Temporal Trends, and Projections in South and Central Asia. British Journal of Ophthalmology, 103 (7). pp. 871-877. ISSN 1468-2079

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Abstract

Background: To assess prevalence and causes of vision loss in Central and South Asia. Methods: A systematic review of medical literature assessed the prevalence of blindness (presenting visual acuity<3/60 in the better eye), moderate and severe vision impairment (MSVI; presenting visual acuity <6/18 but ≥3/60) and mild vision impairment (MVI; presenting visual acuity <6/12 and ≥6/18) in Central and South Asia for 1990, 2010, 2015, and 2020. Results: In Central and South Asia combined, age-standardized prevalences of blindness, MSVI and MVI in 2015 were for men and women 2.80% (80%uncertainty interval (UI):1.14-4.91) and 3.47% (80%UI:1.45-5.99), 16.75% (80%UI:5.60-30.84) and 20.06% (80%UI:7.15-36.12), 11.49% (80%UI:3.43-21.44) and 12.77% (80%UI:4.04-23.48), respectively, with a significant decrease in the study period for both gender. In South Asia in 2015, 11.76 million individuals (32.65% of the global blindness figure) were blind and 61.19 million individuals (28.3% of the global total) had MSVI. From 1990 to 2015, cataract (accounting for 36.58% of all cases with blindness in 2015) was the most common reason for blindness, followed by undercorrected refractive error (36.43%), glaucoma (5.81%), age-related macular degeneration (2.44%), corneal diseases (2.43%), diabetic reti-nopathy (0.16%) and trachoma (0.04%). For MSVI in South Asia 2015, most common causes were undercor-rected refractive error (accounting for 66.39% of all cases with MSVI), followed by cataract (23.62%), age-related macular degeneration (1.31%) and glaucoma (1.09%). Conclusions: One third of the global blind resided in South Asia in 2015, although the age-standardized preva-lence of blindness and MSVI decreased significantly between 1990 and 2015.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Additional Information:	A list of the members of the Vision Loss Expert Group of the Global Burden of Disease study can be found by accessing this site: http://bit.ly/2u3RVzm
Keywords:	Global Burden of Disease Study, Vision loss expert group, Vision loss, Blindness, Vision impairment
Faculty:	Faculty of Health, Education, Medicine & Social Care
Depositing User:	Ian Walker
Date Deposited:	02 Oct 2018 10:32
Last Modified:	10 Feb 2022 10:24
URI:	https://arro.anglia.ac.uk/id/eprint/703635

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