VISION 2020: The Right to Sight

The Christian Blind Mission (CBM), in cooperation with the World Health Organization (WHO) launched the VISION 2020 campaign in 1999. This is a global initiative that aims to help eliminate avoidable blindness by the year 2020.

VISION 2020 is coordinated by a task force of the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness. According to CBM, worldwide there are 37 million blind people and more than 124 million with low vision. Every 5 seconds, a person in the world goes blind, and a child goes blind every minute.

The CBM said that 75% of all blindness is avoidable because it is either preventable or treatable, and 90% of all avoidable blindness occurs within developing countries. According to estimates, 9 million blind people live in India,

7 million in Africa and 6 million in China.
The main priorities for eliminating avoidable blindness are:
• cataract (causing nearly 50% of global blindness);
• eye infections (trachoma and onchocerciasis) and visual loss in children (xerophthalmia) (causing approximately 10% of blindness worldwide); and
• refractive errors and low vision.

To achieve the goal of eliminating avoidable blindness, the initiative aims to increase awareness of blindness as a major public health issue, gain control over the major causes of blindness with cost-effective interventions, train eye care personnel to provide good quality eye care, and develop an infrastructure for eye care services.

The success of VISION 2020 depends on the cooperation of many aid organizations as well as corporate sponsorship. Programs exist in more than 30 countries including Afghanistan and Mongolia, which came on board in 2004. Apart from the national programs, the CBM also promotes many regional blindness prevention projects in places like Ecuador, Venezuela, China and Indonesia.

CBM not only provides financial support for medical work, it finances workshops in 25 countries to train health system officials how to plan projects according to VISION 2020 specifications. According to the CBM, blindness costs the global economy $25 billion USD per annum, including the cost of lost productivity, rehabilitation and training.

After 5 years, the CBM reports that at least one goal of VISION 2020 has already come within reach — the elimination of river blindness. According to WHO, the number of people blinded by onchocerciasis has dropped from 500,000 to 290,000. Age-related macular degeneration and glaucoma must now be classified among the main causes of blindness, however.

Almost 50 million eye patients were examined and treated at CBM-supported projects from 1999 to 2004, making it one of the leading organizations when it come to implementing VISION 2020. Over the next 15 years, VISION 2020 will continue to take steps to prevent an estimated 100 million people from becoming blind.