@article {1360116,
	title = {Prevalence and causes of blindness and vision impairment: magnitude, temporal trends and projections in South and Central Asia},
	journal = {Br J Ophthalmol},
	volume = {103},
	number = {7},
	year = {2019},
	month = {2019 Jul},
	pages = {871-877},
	abstract = {BACKGROUND: To assess prevalence and causes of vision loss in Central and South Asia. METHODS: A systematic review of medical literature assessed the prevalence of blindness (presenting visual acuity\&lt;3/60 in the better eye), moderate and severe vision impairment (MSVI; presenting visual acuity \&lt;6/18 but >=3/60) and mild vision impairment (MVI; presenting visual acuity \&lt;6/12 and >=6/18) in Central and South Asia for 1990, 2010, 2015 and 2020. RESULTS: In Central and South Asia combined, age-standardised prevalences of blindness, MSVI and MVI in 2015 were for men and women aged 50+years, 3.72\% (80\% uncertainty interval (UI): 1.39-6.75) and 4.00\% (80\% UI: 1.41-7.39), 16.33\% (80\% UI: 8.55-25.47) and 17.65\% (80\% UI: 9.00-27.62), 11.70\% (80\% UI: 4.70-20.32) and 12.25\% (80\% UI:4.86-21.30), respectively, with a significant decrease in the study period for both gender. In South Asia in 2015, 11.76 million individuals (32.65\% of the global blindness figure) were blind and 61.19 million individuals (28.3\% of the global total) had MSVI. From 1990 to 2015, cataract (accounting for 36.58\% of all cases with blindness in 2015) was the most common cause of blindness, followed by undercorrected refractive error (36.43\%), glaucoma (5.81\%), age-related macular degeneration (2.44\%), corneal diseases (2.43\%), diabetic retinopathy (0.16\%) and trachoma (0.04\%). For MSVI in South Asia 2015, most common causes were undercorrected refractive error (accounting for 66.39\% of all cases with MSVI), followed by cataract (23.62\%), age-related macular degeneration (1.31\%) and glaucoma (1.09\%). CONCLUSIONS: One-third of the global blind resided in South Asia in 2015, although the age-standardised prevalence of blindness and MSVI decreased significantly between 1990 and 2015.},
	issn = {1468-2079},
	doi = {10.1136/bjophthalmol-2018-312292},
	author = {Nangia, Vinay and Jonas, Jost B and George, Ronnie and Lingam, Vijaya and Ellwein, Leon and Cicinelli, Maria Vittoria and Das, Aditi and Flaxman, Seth R and Keeffe, Jill E and Kempen, John H and Leasher, Janet and Limburg, Hans and Naidoo, Kovin and Pesudovs, Konrad and Resnikoff, Serge and Silvester, Alexander J and Tahhan, Nina and Taylor, Hugh R and Wong, Tien Y and Bourne, Rupert R A and Vision Loss Expert Group of the Global Burden of Disease Study}
}
