World Sight Day, held on the second Thursday of October every year, aims to focus global attention on vision impairment and blindness. There is a different theme every year, with many of those who mark the Day taking the opportunity to both celebrate achievements to date and advocate for increasing attention towards eye care. Globally, the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness has a leadership role in preparing the annual World Sight Day.
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This year, the ‘Call to Action‘ for World Sight Day is:
Vision First!
International Key Messages
- 36 million people who are blind
- 17 million people with moderate or severe distance vision impairment
Of those with blindness and MSVI, 124 million people have uncorrected refractive errors and 65 million have cataract—more than 75% of all blindness and MSVI is avoidable - 253 million people blind or vision impaired (in 2015)
- 1 billion people with near-vision impairment
- The prevalence of blindness and vision impairment combined has dropped from 4.58% in 1990 to 3.37% in 2015.
- 89% of vision impaired people live in low and middle-income countries
- 55% of moderate or severely vision impaired people are women
