Trend of retinal diseases in developing countries

The trend of retinal blindness has changed its pattern over the years in developing countries. A decade ago, hereditary retinal disorders formed the major cause of visual loss due to retinal diseases. With the improvement in health and science, Diabetic retinopathy, age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) have become the important and increasing causes of retinal blindness. It is expected that there would be 57 million diabetics in India by 2025 and 137 million people older than 65 years of age by 2021. By 2030, it is estimated that the number of diabetics greater than 64 years of age will be greater than 82 million in developing countries and greater than 42 million in developed countries. The prevalence of AMD ranges from 0.6 to 1.1% in developing countries with the exception of certain countries such as Pakistan and Bangladesh. By WHO criteria, there are 1.5 million blind children worldwide, of whom 1 million are in Asia, 0.3 million in Africa, 0.1 million in Latin America and 0.1 million in the rest of the world. The incidence of ROP in neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) or referral to tertiary care hospital ranges from approximately 21 to 40%. Proper implementation of measures, such as health education and promotion, accessible eye care services, strengthening of infrastructure and affordable technology can possibly help to tackle this avoidable and treatable retinal cause of blindness.