Your Excellency, Dr Shah Abdulla Mahir, Minister of State, Ministry of Health, Maldives; Your Excellency, Mr Bonifacio Mau Coli dos Reis, Vice Minister, Timor-Leste; Member State representatives and high-level experts from across the South-East Asia Region; Dr G N Rao, Founder, LV Prasad Eye Institute; WHO Collaborating Centres, partners, colleagues and friends,
Good morning and welcome to this high-level meeting to accelerate access for all people in the South-East Asia Region to quality, affordable, integrated, people-centred and comprehensive eye care by 2030.
For the first time in history, we have the technology to eliminate avoidable blindness and poor vision for everyone, everywhere. Together, we must make this a reality.
My sincere gratitude to all experts and partners – especially our long-time collaborators, the LV Prasad Eye Institute – for your input and support in drafting our new Regional Strategic Action Plan for integrated people-centred eye care 2022–2030.
The Plan was unanimously endorsed at the Seventy-fifth Session of the Regional Committee in September 2022, is aligned with our Regional Strategy for Primary Health Care, launched in December 2021, and incorporates the many recommendations of the 2019 WHO World Report on Vision.
It is actionable, evidence-based and informed by the people and communities for whom it is set to drive transformative change.
I have convened this meeting with one single, overarching purpose: to accelerate action to implement the Plan in full, and with maximum accountability.
And I have convened it at the highest levels, convinced that to achieve our targets and goals, the highest level of commitment is required from the highest calibre of leaders – leaders who can tackle the avoidable yet entrenched barriers that enable vision impairment and blindness to not just persist but increase.
Today, at least 2.2 billion people globally have a vision impairment or blindness.
At least 1 billion cases of vision impairment could have been prevented or are yet to be addressed.
Nearly 30% of the world’s blind and vision-impaired live in the South-East Asia Region, which comprises just over a quarter of humanity.
This disproportionate – and let us agree, unacceptable – burden is first and foremost an issue of equity.
Young children and older people are the most vulnerable. Women, rural populations and ethnic minority groups are more likely than other groups to have vision impairment and are less likely to access care.
And in most cases, prevention and care is simple to provide. Clean water. A pair of spectacles. Removal of a cataract.
But at the same time, we see increased prevalence of vision impairment and blindness among people of all socio-economic groups, which tracks with the Region’s rising tide of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs).
In 2019, the Region was home to 87.6 million people with diabetes. Of them, 30.6 million had diabetic retinopathy, and 9.6 million had sight-threatening retinopathy.
Globally, by 2040, an estimated 642 million people will have diabetes. Of them, around 35% will have some form of diabetic retinopathy, and 11% – around 70 million people – will have sight-threatening retinopathy.
In 2020, the estimated economic cost of blindness and moderate to severe vision loss globally was US$ 411 billion, equivalent to around 3% of the world’s GDP.
Between 2015 and 2030, the number of people with presbyopia – loss of near-distance focus – is projected to increase from 1.8 billion to 2.1 billion.
There is no question: Our challenges are immense. But as the Action Plan highlights, so too are the opportunities we have to drive rapid, equitable and sustained progress towards universal eye health coverage – the message I want to focus on today.
If adequately implemented, the Plan will enable all countries of the Region to provide equitable access to quality, affordable, integrated, people-centred and comprehensive eye care by 2030.
It will enable them to attain a 40% increase in effective coverage of refractive errors and a 30% increase in effective coverage of cataract surgery.
It will ensure that at least 80% of people with diabetes are screened regularly for retinopathy, and that at least 80% of those identified with sight-threatening diabetic retinopathy are treated.
Finally, it will enable all countries of the Region to eliminate trachoma by 2025, in alignment with the Region’s Flagship Priority on eliminating neglected tropical diseases and other diseases on the verge of elimination.
To achieve these outcomes, the Plan identifies a series of actionable, evidence-based and locally adaptable strategies that I call on all stakeholders to implement, without delay.
First, people and communities must be engaged and empowered, with a focus on increasing health literacy and enhancing demand for eye care services, including for assistive and rehabilitative technologies.
Across the Region, new opportunities to reach at-risk and underserved populations must be identified and leveraged, such as strengthening school health programmes, or better integrating eye health screening into other health services for people above 40 years of age.
Second, current models of care must be reoriented to prioritize primary health care (PHC) and community-based services, in alignment with the Region’s Strategy for PHC and our overall Build Back Better vision.
Management of common eye health issues should be mainstreamed into routine health services. Functional referral linkages should be strengthened. Mobile clinics and other innovative models of care should be expanded to reach each and every community, including those in difficult terrains.
Third, increased efforts are required to better coordinate eye care services within and across programmes and sectors.
We know that eye care services can and should be provided alongside services for maternal, newborn and child health, as well NCD and other routine services.
But they should also be integrated into activities for poverty alleviation, water and sanitation, and disability inclusion among other cross-cutting areas.
On this, the Action Plan is clear: The ‘three Cs’ of coordination, collaboration and convergence must inform all that we do.
Fourth, in all countries, the eye health workforce must be vigorously strengthened, ensuring that it is adequate, appropriately trained and positioned.
Gaps and challenges must be identified and mapped. A competency-based training framework must be developed and implemented. Increased task-sharing, delegation and use of technology by teams of health workers must be achieved to strengthen quality of care at all levels and across health cadre.
Fifth, an environment that enables rapid, sustained and inclusive progress must be established and nurtured. And I here want to highlight LVPEI’s tremendous work to extend equitable and efficient eye care to underserved populations globally. On this, you will see and hear more at the upcoming field visit.
Excellencies, partners and friends,
In the months and years ahead, we have an immense opportunity:
To transform the health and well-being, lives and livelihoods of the most marginalized and furthest behind;
To maximize overall population heath and help prevent and control NCDs – since 2014, a Regional Flagship Priority programme;
And to mitigate the vast, inequitable and rising costs of vision impairment and blindness across our Region.
Together, let us seize this opportunity, ensuring that by 2030, all people in the Region can access quality, affordable, integrated, people-centred and comprehensive eye care, leaving no person or community behind.
Thank you.