Visually impaired students make Rakhi, a bracelet that is tied by a girl or woman to his brother on the wrist for the upcoming festival of Raksha Bandhan, at a vocational training center run by the Blind Relief Association, 04/08/22, New Delhi, India. Photo Credit: Pacific Press/Getty Images
Health IndiaWorth the Effort: Blindness Numbers Drop by Half!
As of 2019, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) figures show a 47.1 percent decrease in blindness and a 51.9 percent decrease in visual impairment in India.
The major cause of blindness, representing 66.2 percent of all cases, is cataracts. Yet, 92.9 percent of visual impairment cases and 97.4 percent of blindness in India is caused by something avoidable. The WHO’s goal is to reduce blindness to .3 percent of the entire population – India’s figure currently stands at .36 percent.
Though India has not yet met the WHO’s threshold, blindness has significantly declined in recent decades due to the implementation of a series of effective measures via the National Program for Control of Blindness and Visual Impairment. The positive trend is likely to continue.
