Children's right to sight

Blindness in childhood is a priority of Vision 2020, a global initiative for the elimination of avoidable blindness (www.v2020.org), even though the worldwide total of 45 million blind people includes only 1.4 million blind children.12 But blind children have a lifetime of blindness ahead, which affects their opportunities for education, employment, and earning. Blindness that starts early in life adversely affects psychomotor, social, and emotional development. And blind children have a higher death rate than their sighted counterparts.

An estimated 500 000 children become blind each year, but, in developing countries, up to 60% are thought to die within a year of becoming blind.2 Almost half of all blindness in children--particularly those in the poorest communities--is due to avoidable causes that are amenable to cost effective interventions.3