The prevalence of blindness and vision impairment is higher in females than males while presently almost half a million women in Pakistan are suffering from blindness and vision impairment, said Brig. (R) Prof. Dr. Sabihuddin, Head of the Cataract Department at Al-Shifa Trust Eye Hospital here Thursday. In a ceremony to celebrate June as Cataract Awareness Month, Dr. Sabihuddin informed that Al Shifa Trust(AST) annually performs 52 thousand surgeries free of charge. He said that there are around 2.2 billion blind or visually impaired people in the world and the complication may have been avoided in at least 1 billion of these cases.
Vision impairment is four times higher in low- and middle-income ranges compared to high-income areas while according to WHO estimates, vision impairment results in an annual global productivity loss of $411 billion, posing a significant financial burden.
