Half of vision impairment in Western Europe is preventable

Nearly half of vision impairment in Western Europe is preventable, a new study has claimed.

Research published in the British Journal of Ophthalmology, conducted by Professor Rupert Bourne of Anglia Ruskin University, found uncorrected refractive error made up 49.6% of moderate to severe visual impairment (MSVI) cases.

While the study showed the UK to have some of the lowest prevalence of blindness in the world for people over 50, the percentage of the population with MSVI was greater than in countries including Andorra, Serbia and Switzerland.