Prevalence of Vision Loss in South and Central Asia in 2020: Magnitude and Temporal Trends

PURPOSE: To estimate the prevalence of vision loss for 2020 in South and Central Asia and analyze trends since 1990. METHODS: In a systematic literature review, we estimated the prevalence of blindness, visual impairment (VI) and presbyopia-related VI in 1990,2000,2010, and 2020. RESULTS: The study included 103 population-based studies. In South/Central Asia combined, age-standardized prevalence of blindness, moderate-to-severe VI (MSVI), moderate VI, severe VI, mild VI and presbyopia-related VI for all ages was 0.65% (95% uncertainty interval (UI):0.56/0.74), 5.06 (4.55/5.59), 4.40 (3.91/4.94), 0.65 (0.57/0.74), 3.21 (2.89/3.56), and 8.77 (6.37/11.48), respectively, with higher values for women than men. From 2000 to 2020, changes in age-standardized prevalence in South Asia were -36.85 (-36.94/-36.76), -7.01 (-7.13/-6.90), -5.86 (-5.99/-5.73), -13.96 (-14.09/-13.82), -9.55 (-9.66/-9.44), and…