A new campaign in the US highlighting the best ways to wear and care for contact lenses has also unearthed the expense of medical visits for eye infections.
The first ever Contact Lens Health Week began today (November 17-21), and was supported with findings by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that such visits resulted in $175m in direct healthcare costs.
The CDC analysed national databases of outpatient care centres and emergency rooms to develop the first national estimates of how much keratitis occurs in the country.
It was found that Americans made 930,000 visits to doctors’ offices and outpatient clinics, and 58,000 visits to the emergency room due to eye infections. Women were slightly more likely to be affected than men, accounting for 63 per cent of office visits and about 55 per cent of emergency room visits, it was found. The condition was found to be spread evenly across age groups.
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