Health | 2019 World Report on Vision

The Philippine Eye Research Institute or PERI together with the Department of Health and the National Committee for Sight Preservation (NCSP) kicks off the Forum on the 2019 World Report on Vision at the Rizal Park Hotel.

The forum brings together policy makers, organizations and individuals engaged in the eye health care sector.  They shared their resources to provide framework to guide the eye health sector for direction in the next decade.

That aside from reporting the situation on eye health the forum also wants to raise its awareness.   Concern for ones eyesight is paramount as it affects people's lives.  They want to create awareness so that they can detect and cure vision impairment even at young ages.  Based on studies, vision impairment or vision degradation sometimes start during kindergarten.  Kids often were diagnosed as hyperactive and had short attention span inside their classes, only to find out that they can't see the teacher at most.  With early detection, authorities can recommend remedial measure such as placing the student in front so he can focus better on the lessons, and maybe suggest corrective lenses or glasses thereon.  Causes of the rising incidence of visual impairment is due to the lifestyle choices.  The food young ones take and the proliferation of mobile devices that emit blue light the experts say.

Now for this year's report, they also included for the first time data on the cases of visual impairment.  Prior reports dwell only on blindness but now they have included other cases affecting eyesight. They also showed that Cataract is the main cause of this with 1.112 Million Filipinos being affected.  Others are uncorrected EOR, Glaucoma and maculopathy/ DM Retinopathy as next afflicting roughly 800,000 of our countrymen.

The Forum now pushes for early vision screening and treatment programs be enhanced to detect these conditions to prevent development of blindness among its patients.