WHO calls for low-cost blindness intervention

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has called for the distribution of 'low cost interventions' such as spectacles to developing countries. This it claimed would boost the world's economy, which loses billions of dollars each year as a result of visual impairments, by increasing productivity.

WHO study findings suggest that blindness contributes to poverty.People who are visually impaired are more likely to be income poor and unemployed. Italso suggested that the global economy could be boosted by improving the vision of those people who are visually impaired because they do not have spectacles.The charity Sightsavers International estimates there are around 150 million people worldwide who could be helped.