South Australian Institute of Ophthalmology, Adelaide, SA 5000, Australia.
Clin Exp Ophthalmol. 2013 Apr;41(3):263-71. doi: 10.1111/j.1442-9071.2012.02869.x. Epub 2012 Oct 30.
There are over 300 million people living in the world today who are visually impaired and a further 45 million who are blind. The large majority (90%) of these people live in developing countries, and up to 75% of blindness are avoidable. With cataracts being the major cause of blindness and visual impairment, many ophthalmic aid programmes are aimed at alleviating the enormous burden caused by this readily treatable disease. Having said that, caution should be exercised that short surgical visits to remote rural areas that are not coordinated with local national eye care managers should be discouraged because they do little for the development of sustainable eye care programmes. With this in view, it has become imperative to design blindness prevention and ophthalmic support programmes that are workable, comprehensive, economical and sustainable.
目前全球有超过 3 亿视障人士，另有 4500 万人失明。这些人中，绝大多数（90%）生活在发展中国家，高达 75%的失明是可以避免的。白内障是导致失明和视力障碍的主要原因，因此许多眼科援助项目旨在减轻这种易于治疗的疾病带来的巨大负担。话虽如此，我们仍需谨慎，因为未经与当地国家眼科保健管理人员协调的短期农村偏远地区的外科手术访问对可持续眼科保健计划的发展几乎没有任何帮助，应避免此类情况发生。有鉴于此，设计可行、全面、经济和可持续的防盲和眼科支持计划已变得势在必行。
