PARIS, March 18 (Xinhua) -- Impaired vision, a widespread visual disability, is reportedly affecting 4.2 billion people across the world, leading to a lost in productivity of 269 billion U.S. dollars annually, a new survey showed Monday.
Conducted by French leading ophthalmic optics company, Essilor, the survey result was released during the inauguration of "The Vision Impact Institute."
It emerged from the admission that data on impaired vision were scarce and broadly uncoordinated, uncovering the magnitude of the problem of poor vision.
The new vision study indicated that among the huge amount of impaired vision people, 2.5 billion remain uncorrected.
"Impaired vision and its cost are still underestimated in developed and emerging countries," the survey revealed, as 30 percent of young people in the world under the age of 18 reportedly suffer from uncorrected refractive error. "This proportion rises to 33 percent in the workforce, 37 percent among elderly people and 23 percent among motorists," it added.
"Today, we are calling on scientists and opinion leaders in every country to get involved in the global challenge of fighting visual impairment," said Jean-Felix Biosse Duplan, President of the Vision Impact Institute.
To fight impaired vision in the world, the Vision Impact Institution is designed to provide a new platform, serving as a global collector and connector of knowledge, data and solutions for reducing the impact of impaired vision.
"This is an ongoing process, and the Institute will encourage further research to better assess the costs of impaired vision for all regions and populations," the president said.
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