Ophthalmology Solutions

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), over 2.2 billion people have a near, or distance vision impairment worldwide.  In nearly half of these incidents, around 1 billion, (or approaching 13% of the world population) were preventable or can be addressed.

This staggering number includes those with vision impairment or blindness due to unaddressed refractive error (88.4 million), cataract (94 million), age-related macular degeneration (8 million), glaucoma (7.7 million), diabetic retinopathy (3.9 million)[1], as well unaddressed presbyopia (826 million)[2].

The prevalence of distance vision impairment in low- and middle-income regions across the Global South is estimated at four times greater than for high-income regions [3].  Around 90% of all blind and visually impaired people live in these regions.[4]  Illustrating this, rates of near vision impairment are more than 80% in western, Eastern and Central Sub-Saharan Africa, compared to less than 10% in America, Australasia, Western Europe, and Asia-Pacific.  

Continued growth and ageing of the global population compounds the risk that the numbers of people with vision impairment continued to escalate.  Jameel Health is working with innovative partners to accelerate access to affordable solutions to address this unmet, and growing, need.