World leaders today committed to making eye health an integral part of mainstream health and set the agenda for eye health for the next decade.
The 73rd World Health Assembly (WHA) today adopted a resolution for ‘Integrated people-centred eye care, including preventable blindness and impaired vision’ which was led by Australia and Indonesia and co-sponsored by 47 countries.
CEO of The Fred Hollows Foundation Ian Wishart said this was a critical milestone for the global eye health community and The Foundation congratulated the Australian Government for its global leadership in seeing it through.
“As the world is gripped by the COVID-19 pandemic, never before has the message of building strong and resilient health systems and achieving Universal Health Coverage been more important,” Mr Wishart said.
“Now, more than ever, the passing of this resolution highlights the urgent need to address barriers in access to eye care, particularly for the poorest and most disadvantaged in our communities who are often left behind – women and girls, people with disability and people living in hard to reach places.
“Today, world leaders have committed to integrating eye health into the mainstream health agenda and have recognised the importance eye health can play in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.
“The resolution redefines eye health as a genuine global health problem shifting the narrative of people affected from millions to billions and notes the situation is set to worsen with current trends, particularly in light of COVID-19.
“We hope to see the recommendations implemented here in Australia, particularly among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, who are currently three times more likely to be blind or vision impaired than other Australians.”
The resolution, adopted at an abridged virtual sitting, commits Member States to implement the recommendations of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) first World Report on Vision released in October.
For the first time in history, the report showed that the issue of blindness and vision impairment was a true global population health problem, needing the world’s urgent attention.
It outlined that at least 2.2 billion people around the world are living with blindness or vision impairment and at least one billion people are living with a condition that could have been prevented or is yet to be addressed.
The resolution directs the WHO to provide additional guidance and to work with Member States to develop feasible global targets to address blindness and vision impairment by WHA 2021.
The resolution sets the global agenda for eye health for the decade to 2030. It commits Member States, including Australia, to:
o Across the full spectrum of services from health, prevention, treatment through to vision rehabilitation;
o Integration across all six levels of the health system, from leadership and governance to service delivery, from medical products and devices to informational systems and from financing to workforce.
o Guidance on evidence-based and cost-effective eye care interventions.
o Deliver a research agenda for health systems and policy.
o Implement technological innovations.
o Improve data collection, monitoring and reporting.
The Fred Hollows Foundation is a leading international development organisation that has restored sight to more than 2.5 million people worldwide and supported programs to deliver almost 100 million doses of antibiotics for trachoma. The Foundation was established in Australia in 1992 and believes in a world where no person is needlessly blind or vision impaired.