This is the VOA Special English Development Report.
An estimated one-hundred-thirty-five million people have lowvision. Forty to forty-five million others cannot see at all. Healthexperts warn that the number of blind people will increase sharplyas the world population grows, and grows older. They say the numberof blind people could almost double by two-thousand-twenty.
Yet the World Health Organization says that in eight out of tencases, blindness can be cured or avoided.
October ninth was World Sight Day.A campaign called Vision Twenty-twenty released materials to helpgovernments and health workers develop national plans to preventblindness.
Vision Twenty-twenty is a joint effort of the W-H-O and theInternational Agency for the Prevention of Blindness. The goal is toend preventable blindness by two-thousand-twenty. The campaigntargets four main causes.
Cataracts cause the lens of the eye to become cloudy. In most ofAfrica and Asia, cataracts cause at least half the cases ofblindness that can be cured. A simple operation can removecataracts.
Trachoma is an infectious disease spread person-to-person and byinsects. Trachoma causes about fifteen percent of all cases ofblindness. Most of the cases are in Africa. The disease can betreated with antibiotic medicines and an operation to correct thedamage.
The disease known as river blindness is also found mostly inAfrica. Flies spread the infection. A yearly treatment of the drugMectizan can control the disease.
Finally, a lack of vitamin A as a result of poor nutrition is theleading cause of preventable blindness in children.
Vision Twenty-twenty says that every five seconds another personin the world goes blind. Most blind people live in developingnations. India has at least nine million. About six million are inChina, and seven million in Africa.
Officials estimate that the worldeconomy loses about twenty-eight-thousand-million dollars each yearfrom curable blindness.
A resolution passed by the World Health Assembly in May urges allgovernments to develop national plans to prevent blindness. You canlearn more about Vision Twenty-twenty on the Internet atv-twenty-twenty dot o-r-g.
This VOA Special English Development Report was written by JillMoss.