A team of scientists from the UK, USA, Italy, Germany, Australia, Singapore, South Africa, India, the Netherlands and Switzerland has published a global study on human vision problems in The Lancet. According to experts, the number of blind people will more than triple by 2050 - from 36 million to 115 million, unless new ways of treating vision-related diseases are found. Despite the fact that the percentage of people with visual impairments is falling, the population of the planet is growing, and thanks to advances in medicine, more and more people are living to old age, which is characterized by various eye diseases.
According to the results of the analysis of information obtained from 188 countries, scientists have suggested that there are more than 200 million patients with moderate to severe visual impairment. By 2050, this number will also increase - to approximately more than 550 million. Most of these people live in South (11.7 million) and East (6.2 million) Asia, as well as in parts of Africa. Since visual impairment directly affects a patient's quality of life, scientists called for more investment in therapy - for example, to perform more cataract surgeries, as well as to increase the number of doctors who could provide timely medical care to patients. This is especially true for developing countries. Because of vision problems, people become dependent on others, and they also have difficulties with education and work.