Childhood blindness

Of the 45 million people worldwide who are blind, around 1.4 million are children under 16. The vast majority of childhood blindness happens before the age of five - a period when 75 per cent of learning is through sight.

What is childhood blindness?

Blindness is more common in poor countries than in rich ones. Children in low-income countries such as Sierra Leone are four times more likely to be blind than those born in high-income ones such as the UK. The main cause - corneal scarring - is rooted in poor diet (lack of Vitamin A) and inadequate sanitation. Sightsavers is working to address both.

Why is childhood blindness a priority?

There are several reasons why Sightsavers believes eliminating childhood blindness is a priority:

• there are an estimated 500,000 new cases each year of childhood blindness - roughly one per minute
• blindness in children is often preventable if communities and parents become aware of the causes
• without early intervention for cataract blindness children may go blind permanently
• blinding conditions increase child mortality - 50 per cent of children who become blind die within two years
• 90 per cent of children who are blind don't go to school
• eliminating childhood blindness will lead to a greater reduction in the number of 'blind years' experienced by adults.

Causes of childhood blindness

Childhood blindness has many causes. In poor countries the main ones are corneal scarring and cataract. If not treated in childhood, trachoma and river blindness may affect sight in later life. Some blindness is hereditary.

Global figures show:

• roughly 57 per cent of childhood blindness is unavoidable
• 28 per cent is preventable
• 15 per cent is treatable

The proportion of children suffering non-preventable blindness in wealthy and poor countries is comparable, but preventable blindness is much more prevalent in the developing world.

The main causes:

• corneal scarring (the drying out and scarring of the outer eye because of vitamin A deficiency) is the most common cause of childhood blindness. It has caused irreversible sight loss for around 230,000 children.
• cataract (the clouding of the eye's lens) causes an estimated 39 per cent of all childhood blindness. It affects around 200,000 children worldwide.
• trachoma is a repeated infection, causing scarring of the upper eyelid, turning it inwards and making the eyelashes scratch the eye and cause blindness. Although this tends to blinds adults, after repeated infections, trachoma is often first suffered in childhood.
• river blindness (caused by a parasitic worm and spread by flies) rarely blinds before the age of 15, but must be prevented by taking Mectizan® to avoid blindness in later life.