Juggling Figures

Approximately four years ago roughly 703 million people in the world did not have good vision as they did not have the access to eye examinations and corrective eyeglasses.

Further to that the  calculated savings that could be achieved by correcting their vision would be $202 billion per annum  whereas the cost of this effort would be just  a one-time investment of only $28 billion.

Out of that twenty eight billion 47,000 eye care providers and 18,000 optical dispensers would be trained ,  new building facilities made, and the operation costs of providing  the vision care for five years would be met.

Spending that amount of money in training, establishing an infrastructure and provide glasses to those who meet the prescription is a mere drop in the ocean compared with the annual cost to the global economy. So said the Chief Executive Officer of the Brien Holden Vision Institute. There will be huge economic benefits for society by restoring vision of these people.

The figure of $202 billion is an estimate of lost productivity based on the inability of vision-deprived people to learn and  therefore to work. It takes into account only the 158 million cases of distance vision problems (myopia, hyperopia and astigmatism). If those with near vision problems totalling almost  544 million people due to presbyopia, etc. were also helped, then it is claimed that even more savings could be achieved.

The Brien Holden Vision Institute in Australia and South Africa and Johns Hopkins University in the United States researched and calculated the data.