World Sight Day, the annual awareness day that focusses global attention on blindness and vision impairment, will be held on Thursday 8 October 2020. Established by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in 2000, World Sight Day is co-ordinated by the International Agency for Prevention of Blindness (IAPB).
All World Sight Day events are organised independently by members and supporter organisations.
On World Sight Day, IAPB members work together to raise public awareness of blindness and vision impairment as major international public health issues; influence Governments/Ministers of Health to participate in and designate funds for national blindness prevention programmes; and educate target audiences about blindness prevention.
Globally in 2020, at least 2.2 billion people have a vision impairment that may or may not be addressed, and of those, at least one billion people have a vision impairment that could have been prevented or has yet to be addressed.
Additionally, 2.6 billion people have myopia, including 312 million children under 19 years of age. Millions of others live with eye conditions that increase their risk of sight loss: 196 million with agerelated macular degeneration; 146 million with diabetic retinopathy; 76 million with glaucoma; 5 million with trachomatous trichiasis, and 277 million with high myopia.1
This year, the international theme for World Sight Day is Hope in Sight. Vision 2020 Australia will use social media and the #WorldSightDayAU hashtag to share information about eye health and vision care, and highlight the sector’s important work. Visit worldsightday.org.au.
Reference
- www.iapb.org/advocacy/world-sight-day
