World blindness---no end in sight

World blindness-no end in sightRecent estimates suggest that nearly 45 million people worldwide fulfil the World Health Organization's criterion for blindness, defined as a best corrected vision of less than 3/60 in the better seeing eye. 1 An additional 135 million people are visually disabled and in need of social, vocational, economic, or rehabilitative support services.To compound matters, more than 90% of all blind and visually disabled people live in the developing world, where common causes of bilateral vision loss include cataract, glaucoma, trachoma, vitamin A deficiency, and onchocerciasis.Additional causes of bilateral vision loss, which together comprise nearly one quarter of all blindness and which aVect people in both developed and developing nations, include diabetic retinopathy and macular degeneration, among others (Fig 1).These numbers are projected to double within two to three decades unless innovative blindness prevention initiatives are undertaken in the near future.It is against this backdrop that the editors of the BJO have elected to introduce a new column entitled "World view," which will address issues pertaining to blindness prevention in the broadest sense.Hugh Taylor and Jill KeeVe provide the inaugural instalment for "World view" with their essay entitled "World blindness: a 21st century perspective" (p 261).Together, Taylor and KeeVe highlight some of the past successes in blindness prevention, including vaccination for smallpox and the This work was supported in part by a career development award from