A new, first-of-its-kind global study now has found that more than one in three children and teens worldwide suffer from myopia, or nearsightedness, leading to pleas to limit screen time and increase exercise. Myopia is generally diagnosed as difficulty seeing distant objects clearly and is typically corrected with eyeglasses.
From researchers at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, China, the study demonstrates an alarming growth of the prevalence of myopia within the last three decades and indicates that the number of children and teenagers affected by the illness could surpass 740 million by 2050. In a British Journal of Ophthalmology analysis, the data consisted of 276 studies involving more than five million participants in 50 countries – regions in Europe, North and South America, Asia, Africa, and Oceania.
The analysis suggests a disturbing trend, with the rate having increased from 24% for the period 1990-2000 to an estimated 36% for 2020-2023. Forecasts indicate that myopia will reach around 40% of the global occurrence by 2050 from 600 million cases by 2030. Older teens aged 13-19 years were affected more than the younger children aged 6-12 years. The condition is markedly more prevalent among girls and urban-dwelling children.
During this upsurge in myopia, the researchers said it may be associated with the COVID-19 pandemic: they cited apparent evidence that suggested a correlation between how the pandemic spread and the accelerated rate at which visions were deteriorating among young adults. According to the researchers, being out of doors should be actively promoted to the people, and more so, it should have lesser time taken out for screens, especially amongst the youths.
Although the authors were frank about the inherent limitations in the methodology that arose from the heterogeneity in study designs, the variability itself lends credibility to the estimates. They thus caution that myopia may soon emerge as a vital global health burden, an increasingly ever-consequential need for proactive public health strategies.
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