World Health Organization steps up fight for sight

The World Health Assembly, the governing body of the World Health Organization, passed a regulation last week giving priority to the prevention of blindness and visual impairment.

This global prioritisation is the first time WHO has given the prevention of blindness and visual impairment this level of importance.

Dick Porter, director of opeations for the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB) which lobbied vigorously for the resolution, said: ‘This is a major step forward in the fight against avoidable blindness and visual impairment.

‘By making blindness prevention and cure a priority area for action, the possibility now exists to eliminate this needless cause of human suffering. But the words of resolution must be followed by the determined actions of governments to ensure that the resources are made available so that this can become a reality.’

It was crucial that privileged and wealthy donor countries such as the UK now made funds available, he said.

Former Prime Minister John Major, global ambassador for Vision 2020: the Right to Sight supported the resolution. ‘The challenges presented by avoidable blindness are immense. Last year I travelled to India to witness some of the invaluable work first hand and returned utterly convinced that more must be done.’

He added that if WHO member states took the recommended actions, a conservative estimate of the savings in lost productivity alone was $223bn.