WHA-adopted eye health targets can help ‘hold governments to account’

Advocates welcomed the 74th World Health Assembly’s move to adopt global targets to increase coverage of critical eye health care interventions to prevent refractive errors and cataracts — two of the leading causes of blindness and vision impairment.

On Thursday, member states committed to increasing eye health service coverage for refractive errors by 40%, and 30% for cataract surgery by 2030 and added that countries with an already high coverage rate of 60% or higher “should strive for universal coverage.”

Refractive errors refer to common eye disorders such as nearsightedness, farsightedness, and blurred vision, which could be addressed with a corrective pair of glasses. However, over 800 million people are estimated to be living with poor vision as they do not have access to such basic eyewear.

This figure is expected to increase in the coming years driven by aging and people’s lifestyle or behavior. According to the first-ever World Report on Vision, published by the World Health Organization in 2019, smoking is a primary risk factor for age-related macular degeneration and can contribute to the development of cataracts. Vitamin A deficiency as well as certain jobs and recreational activities can also lead to vision impairment and blindness.

“The resolution that was passed yesterday is a huge step forward for eye health,” Juliet Milgate, director of policy and global advocacy at Sightsavers, told Devex. She said increasing eye health care coverage is important given the expected demand in the coming years.

“Unless there is a strong, continued effort to improve eye health services, the number of people who are blind is projected to increase from 43.2 million to 61 million by 2050,” she said.

Milgate said the reference in the resolution on “effective coverage” further “adds the dimension of quality of care.”

Advocates pushed for the adoption of a WHA resolution in 2020 that asked the WHO director-general to recommend “feasible global targets for 2030” that focuses on effective coverage of refractive error and cataract surgery. Since the adoption of that resolution, they have been campaigning for the targets agreed on Thursday, Peter Holland, CEO at the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness, told Devex.

“The targets are a vital mechanism to monitor global progress on eye health and to hold governments to account,” he said.

But the adoption of the targets “is just the first step,” he added, as WHO is in the process of producing a monitoring framework for eye health that will include 30-40 indicators that countries can select to monitor progress against their national and subnational priorities.

“As a sector, we need to come together [and] actively promote this agenda to national governments,” he said.