Here is some stuff I found out from the Fred Hollows Foundation, many thanks to them...
Blindness is most prevalent in developing countries where malnutrition, inadequate health and education services, poor water quality and a lack of sanitation leads to a high incidence of eye disease.
• An estimated 314 million people worldwide are visually impaired, of whom 124 million people have low vision and 45 million are blind.
• More than 75% of the world’s blindness is preventable or treatable.
• Approximately 90% of people with vision impairment live in developing countries.
• An estimated 1.4 million children under the age of 15 are blind worldwide.
• In some developing countries, up to 60% of children die within a year of becoming blind, either from the condition that caused the blindness (such as measles and vitamin A deficiency) or from inadequate care as families affected by poverty struggle to look after a disabled child.
• Blindness is both a cause and a result of poverty. Adults and children living in poverty are more likely to suffer from malnutrition, poor water quality and inadequate sanitation. This places them at much higher risk of contracting eye disease.
• The annual global economic impact of blindness was estimated at US$42 billion in 2000.
• Around three-quarters of the world’s blind children live in developing countries in Africa and Asia.
Cataract Blindness
• On a global scale, cataracts are the leading cause of blindness, accounting for approximately 48% of all blindness.
• Cataract blindness can be treated with surgery. Cataract surgery is considered to be one of the most cost-effective forms of health intervention.
• In some developing countries, the rate of cataract surgery is less than 250 operations per million people per year. This compares to a rate of up to 8,000 in some developed countries.
