Daisy's Eye Cancer Fund - Global Childhood Blindness

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A Global Picture of
Childhood Blindness

According to the World Health Organization, childhood blindness is largely determined by socioeconomic development, and by the availability of primary health care and eye care services.

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A Global Picture
of Childhood
Blindness

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For half of all blind children, the underlying cause could have been prevented, or treated to preserve vision or restore sight.

Affected children have a lifetime of blindness ahead of them. This is accompanied by emotional, social, and economic costs to the child, the family, and society.

A child’s eye cannot just be considered a smaller version of an adult eye. Vision loss in children poses particular challenges, different from those of adult blindness. Children are born with an immature visual system. For normal visual development to occur, clear images must be transmitted to the visual cortex (visual processing centre in the brain).

There is a level of urgency when treating childhood eye diseases because if normal visual development fails, it cannot be corrected in adult life. The assessment of vision and examination of children’s eyes also pose particular difficulties which require time and experience on the part of the doctor. On top of this, children respond differently to medical and surgical treatment.

Preventing blindness in children is a priority within the World Health Organization’s ‘VISION 2020 – The Right to Sight’ program. Strategies need to be disease and region specific, including community-level prevention programs, health education, and the provision of regional eye care facilities for conditions like retinoblastoma, that require specialized management.

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Registered charity #: 111-11-33

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