Five facts about childhood blindness you need to know

While children make up just one in 10 people who are blind, the implications for children who are blind are far reaching.

Here are five facts you need to know about childhood blindness:
 

1)    It’s prevalent

There are 1.4 million blind children in the world.

One million of these children live in Asia and 300,000 live in Africa.
This number of people would fill the Sydney Cricket Ground more than 30 times.

2)    It’s increasing

Every minute, somewhere in the world, a child goes blind and nearly half a million children develop blindness each year.

3)    It can mean death

Blindness can be a death sentence.

Most blind children are either born blind or become blind before their fifth birthday.
 
"To be blind in a place like this really means death" with malnutrition the main threat, says Dr Kibata from Kenya.

This is the harsh reality of a blind child’s life chances, growing up in a poor country where about 45 per cent of childhood blindness could be prevented or treated.

4)    It’s a huge cost

The global financial cost in terms of loss of earning capacity, is greater than the cost of adult blindness and has recently been estimated to be between US$60 billion and $270 billion.

It has been estimated that nearly a third of the global economic cost of blindness is due to childhood blindness.

5)    Ending it is also a smart financial decision

Every $1 invested in blindness in low and middle income countries provides an economic return of at least $4.