Scientists: number of short-sighted teenagers to reach 740m by mid-21st century
Chinese doctors have concluded that the proportion of children and adolescents with myopia will continue to grow rapidly in the next two decades, as a result of which about 740 million underage people of the planet will suffer from myopia and need vision correction by 2050, TASS reports with reference to a scientific article published in the British Journal of Ophthalmology
"We have combined the results of almost three hundred studies conducted in 50 countries on six different continents. Our analysis shows that about one in three children and adolescents suffers from myopia at present, and their total number may exceed 740 million by 2050," the study says.
The conclusion was reached by a group of Chinese doctors led by Chen Yajun, a Professor at Sun Yat-sen University, when analysing information on the prevalence of myopia in 50 countries around the world, which was collected by specialised medical services and independent scientific groups in the last few decades.
The researchers' interest in this information was due to the fact that the last global survey of the prevalence of myopia among children was published in scientific periodicals in 2015, almost ten years ago. Chinese doctors updated this information and used it to make a forecast about how the number of short-sighted children and adolescents will change by the middle of the century.
The conducted analysis showed that the proportion of children with myopia has been growing rapidly for several decades. In the last decade of the 20th century, this figure was about 24 percent, but reached 30 percent by 2010. In 2023, it stood at 36 percent, growing significantly among teenagers: according to data from 2020-2023, about 54 percent of them suffer from myopia. The most myopic children live in Japan (85 percent), South Korea (73 percent), and Russia (46 percent).
The calculations carried out by scientists also show that all these indicators will continue to grow in the next two decades, as a result of which the proportion of children and adolescents with myopia will grow to 39.8 percent by 2050. As a result, about 740 million underage residents of the planet will need vision correction, and most of them will live in developing Asian countries. This should be taken into account when working out global measures aimed at combating myopia, the scientists concluded.
A significant part of the world's population suffers from myopia and other vision problems, and over 800 million visually impaired people do not have access to vision correction systems.
