Prevalence of Vision Loss in South and Central Asia in 2020: Magnitude and Temporal Trends

GBD 2019 Blindness and Vision Impairment Collaborators; Vision Loss Expert Group of the Global Burden of Disease Study

doi:10.1080/09286586.2024.2374934

Prevalence of Vision Loss in South and Central Asia in 2020: Magnitude and Temporal Trends

Ophthalmic Epidemiol. 2024 Dec 5:1-14. doi: 10.1080/09286586.2024.2374934. Online ahead of print.

Authors

GBD 2019 Blindness and Vision Impairment Collaborators; Vision Loss Expert Group of the Global Burden of Disease Study

Collaborators

Vinay Nangia, Prof Jost B Jonas, Arthur G Fernandes, Ian Tapply, Maria Vittoria Cicinelli, Alessandro Arrigo, Paul Svitil Briant, Prof Theo Vos, Prof Serge Resnikoff, Prof Hugh R Taylor, Tabassom Sedighi, Seth Flaxman, Prof Saira Afzal, Danish Ahmad, Sajjad Ahmad, Tahira Ashraf, Alok Atreya, Atif Amin Baig, Mainak Bardhan, Saurav Basu, Abhishek Bhadra, Devidas S Bhagat, Pankaj Bhardwaj, Zahid A Butt, Vijay Kumar Chattu, Meghnath Dhimal, Ayesha Fahim, Prof Abhay Motiramji Gaidhane, Prof Syed Amir Gilani, Mahaveer Golechha, Sapna Gupta, Ikramul Hasan, Khezar Hayat, Ramesh Holla, Prof Mohammad Mainul Islam, Prof Shubha Jayaram, Nitin Joseph, Vidya Kadashetti, Vineet Kumar Kamal, Bhushan Dattatray Kamble, Soujanya Kaup, Navjot Kaur, Himanshu Khajuria, Sudarshan Khanal, Prof Kewal Krishan, Nithin Kumar, Prof Chandrakant Lahariya, Dharmesh Kumar Lal, Kashish Malhotra, Prof Sanjeev Misra, Prasanna Mithra, Prof Christopher J L Murray, Biswa Prakash Nayak, Robina Khan Niazi, Mamoona Noreen, Jagadish Rao Padubidri, Aslam Ramjan Pathan, Uttam Paudel, Prof Arokiasamy Perianayagam, Vivek Podder, Prof Pankaja Raghav Raghav, Mohammad Hifz Ur Rahman, Mosiur Rahman, Sathish Rajaa, Premkumar Ramasubramani, Prof Umar Saeed, Sher Zaman Safi, Harihar Sahoo, Muhammad Arif Nadeem Saqib, Ganesh Kumar Saya, Yashendra Sethi, Masood Ali Shaikh, Prof K M Shivakumar, Paramdeep Singh, Saif Ullah, Muhammad Umair, Rehana Vr, Jaimie D Steinmetz, Prof Rupert Bourne, Vinay Nangia, Jost B Jonas, Arthur Fernandes, Ian Tapply, Maria Vittoria Cicinelli, Alessandro Arrigo, Nicolas Leveziel, Serge Resnikoff, Hugh Taylor, Tabassom Sedighi, Seth Flaxman, Mukharram Bikbov, Tasanee Braithwaite, Alain Bron, Robert Casson, Ching-Yu Cheng, Joshua R Ehrlich, João M Furtado, Ronnie George, M Elizabeth Hartnett, Rim Kahloun, John Kempen, Moncef Khairallah, Rohit C Khanna, Van Charles Lansingh, Janet L Leasher, Kovin S Naidoo, Michal Nowak, Konrad Pesudovs, Pradeep Ramulu, Nina Tahhan, Fotis Topouzis, Miliadis Tsilimbaris, Rupert R A Bourne

PMID: 39637401
DOI: 10.1080/09286586.2024.2374934

Abstract

Purpose: To estimate the prevalence of vision loss for 2020 in South and Central Asia and analyze trends since 1990.

Methods: In a systematic literature review, we estimated the prevalence of blindness, visual impairment (VI) and presbyopia-related VI in 1990,2000,2010, and 2020.

Results: The study included 103 population-based studies. In South/Central Asia combined, age-standardized prevalence of blindness, moderate-to-severe VI (MSVI), moderate VI, severe VI, mild VI and presbyopia-related VI for all ages was 0.65% (95% uncertainty interval (UI):0.56/0.74), 5.06 (4.55/5.59), 4.40 (3.91/4.94), 0.65 (0.57/0.74), 3.21 (2.89/3.56), and 8.77 (6.37/11.48), respectively, with higher values for women than men. From 2000 to 2020, changes in age-standardized prevalence in South Asia were -36.85 (-36.94/-36.76), -7.01 (-7.13/-6.90), -5.86 (-5.99/-5.73), -13.96 (-14.09/-13.82), -9.55 (-9.66/-9.44), and -8.62 (-8.93/-8.31), respectively for men, and -38.50 (-38.59/-38.40), -10.12 (-10.22/-10.01), -9.23(-9.36/-9.10), -14.86 (-14.99/-14.73), -9.44 (-9.56/-9.33), and -7.78 (-8.09/-7.48), respectively for women. From 2000/2020, the changes in age-standardized prevalence figures in Central Asia were -21.44 (-21.58/-21.30), -2.75 (-2.87/-2.64), -2.17 (-2.30/-2.04), -7.12 (-7.26/-6.99), -5.36 (-5.48/-5.25), and -3.67(-4.02/-3.32), respectively for men, and -21.13 (-21.27/-20.99), -2.70 (-2.81/-2.58), -2.18 (-2.30/-2.05), -6.93 (-7.07/-6.80), -5.03 (-5.14/-4.91), and -2.65 (-3.00/-2.30), respectively, for women. In 2020, 11.94 million (9.98-14.07) and 0.30 million (0.24-0.36) individuals were blind, and 96.22 million (84.12-110.27) and 2.95 million (2.52-3.43) had MSVI in South Asia and Central Asia, respectively.

Conclusions: Despite a higher decrease between 2000 and 2020, the age-standardized prevalence of blindness and MSVI were higher in South Asia than in Central Asia in 2020. The number of people affected increased due to population growth and improved longevity.

Keywords: Central Asia; India; South Asia; Vision loss; blindness; global burden of disease study; moderate to severe vision impairment; vision loss expert group.