World Sight Day 2022 - Launch of the Report for…

Achieving Universal Health Coverage (UHC) - ensuring all people can receive the quality  health services they need, without experiencing financial hardship - is a World Health  Organization (WHO) strategic priority. The eye care sector is well-positioned to contribute to  the advancement of UHC within countries given (i) there is a large unmet need for eye health  services (~1 billion people have a vision impairment that could have been prevented or is  yet to be addressed) and (ii) effective interventions are available to address the needs  associated with eye conditions and vision impairment; some are among the most feasible  and cost-effective of all health care interventions to implement.

The primary purpose of The Report of the 2030 targets on effective coverage of eye care is to present estimates of eCSC and eREC to serve as a reference point to commence monitoring progress towards the 2030 global targets that were endorsed by Member States at the WHA 74.

The report draws on key results from a comprehensive analysis of population-based eye health surveys and includes estimates of eCSC and eREC at the global level, by WHO region, sex and World Bank income level, and the relative quality gap (i.e. % difference between 'effective coverage' and 'coverage').

This report also serves to highlight key gaps in current data and presents suggestions for  additional efforts required to advance surveillance, policies and programmes for increasing  the coverage of eye care interventions.