Health/feature: Blindness In Numbers

• Adults: an estimated 32.4 million people around the world are blind and 191 million are visually impaired
• Four out of five suffer preventable blindness
• 90 per cent of them are in developing countries
• Women: Around 60 per cent of blind adults worldwide are women
• Children: an estimated 1.4 million children are blind and 19 million are visually impaired
• About 40 per cent of childhood blindness can be prevented or treated with simple interventions such as vitamin supplements, immunisation and low-cost eye surgery
• The Fred Hollows Foundation works in more than 20 countries, including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nepal, Pakistan, Palestine and Timor-Leste.
It can cost as little as $25 to restore sight to a person with preventable blindness.
• It can take as little as 20 minutes to perform a sight-saving cataract operation.
• In 2013, the Fred Hollows Foundation conducted more than 4.5 million eye operations, procedures and treatments, with local partners.