The Unseen Issue
ANNIE PATEL – Many people around the world lack access to eye care. Whether it be for common near-sightedness or far-sightedness or other eye conditions, if left untreated some of these issues tend to get more severe over time despite being preventable. The lack of access to care and the high prices associated with this specialty contributes to the overall global issue.
The most common eye care issues are often near and far-sightedness. These can be corrected with a pair of eyeglasses or contacts. However, despite there being options for these conditions, there are areas without clinics or specialists to check for the issue and provide the prescription for the corrective lenses. According to WHO, over 2 billion people globally are living with vision impairment as of now, and by 2050, half of the global population is expected to be living with a vision impairment. With this expected increase of the population having vision issues, plans should be developed soon to set up more eye clinics in more areas, especially in low-income areas and areas with a large minority population since these groups tend to have less access to eye care.
In addition to those common issues, there are also issues of eye diseases which may cause blindness in severe cases. According to the Chief Executive of the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB), eye health…[needs to be] properly integrated within health systems in order to address the challenges ahead and to avoid irreversible progression of eye diseases. Some of these diseases include trachoma, xerophthalmia and Onchocerciasis (“river blindness”)…corneal infections and HIV-related CMV retinitis. In many cases, early detection by a healthcare professional is sufficient in preventing severe cases of these diseases, which could lead to blindness. This is because the providers can start treatment on the patients early on to prevent the situation from worsening to the extent that current treatments would not be able to help. Therefore, having trained specialists in more rural settings of many countries would help reduce the cases of blindness in the area.
Other than lack of access, affordability also makes seeking eye care difficult. That is because oftentimes the price of taking eye exams are very high in addition to the glasses or contacts they may need. Additionally, many times people’s eye prescriptions change over the years, which then requires more eye exams to determine whether it has changed and buying new glasses or contacts if the prescription has changed. Even more challenging is the high cost of eye surgeries and treatments outside of regular eye exams. This is very difficult for many people to continuously seek expensive care and lenses. An IAPB report states that cost and cost-effectiveness analyses evaluating alternative service delivery approaches should be undertaken so that the cost for the patients can be reduced. If reduced, more patients will be willing to seek care and potentially prevent severe vision issues.
Recently, this issue was discussed in the 74th World Health Assembly in May of 2021 which brought countries together to develop a solution. If left alone, this issue will only continue to expand and worsen for an even larger percentage of the population. Many plans are being developed especially for areas with larger low-income populations to help resolve this lack of eye care and affordability concern.
Links:
- https://www.who.int/news/item/23-07-2021-governments-commit-to-accelerate-action-to-improve-access-to-eye-care-services
- https://www.iapb.org/news/rethinking-global-health-means-including-eye-health/
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4063878/
- https://www.iapb.org/learn/vision-atlas/solutions/cost-effectiveness/
Copy Editor: Akshay Nair
Photography Source: