World Sight Day 2011 - 13 October

An estimated 284 million people worldwide are visually impaired, yet 80% of cases are due to causes which could have been prevented, treated or cured. 90% of blind people live in developing countries, and this needless waste costs individuals, families and communities billions of dollars every year.

World Sight Day is an annual day of awareness to focus global attention on blindness, visual impairment and rehabilitation of the visually impaired held on the second Thursday in October.

The Day is observed around the world and is the main advocacy event for the prevention of blindness and for "Vision 2020: The Right to Sight", a global effort to prevent blindness created by WHO and the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness.

A new global logo has been developed for World Sight Day, based on the Braille symbols which spell “WSD”. There is no global theme for WSD11, which we hope will allow each participating organisation to use the occasion to highlight its own priority areas, in ways which will resonate with their own target audiences.

According to WHO estimates:

• 286 million people are visually impaired
• Of these, 39 million are blind, and 246 million have moderate or severe visual impairment
• YET 80% of blindness is avoidable
• 90% of people with visual impairments live in developing countries
• Almost 65% of visually impaired people are over 50 years of age
• 19 million children are visually impaired

Additional links:

• World Health Organization (WHO)
• World Sight Day (WHO)
• VISION 2020: The Right to Sight
• Prevention of Blindness and Visual Impairment (WHO):
  WHO releases the new global estimates on visual impairment

Edited: G. Cornwell & S. Robin