Visus writes: Wake up and smell the coffee – myopia control is here

Last week saw world experts on myopia congregate in Birmingham. If the epidemic of myopia and its potential consequences have passed you by, you’ve not been attending the right meetings (BCLA 2015 for example) or reading the right journals. Just supposing you have heard about this fuss people are making and you remain unconvinced, so what?

Well, there are a few elements you really need to get your head around. First WHO states the prevalence of myopia to be 27% at present (that’s 1,893 million people) and of high myopia 2.8% (170 million). These figures will rise to 52% and 10%, on current trends by 2050. That is within the professional lifetime of optometrists practising today.