In 2013, the World Health Assembly approved the 2014-19 Action Plan for the universal access to eye health, a roadmap for Member States, WHO Secretariat and international partners with the aim of achieving a measurable reduction of 25% of avoidable visual impairments by 2019.
WHO works to strengthen national and country-level efforts to eliminate avoidable blindness, help national health care providers treat eye diseases, expand access to eye health services, and increase rehabilitation for people with residual visual impairment or who are blind. Building accessible and comprehensive health systems is the focus of this decade.
WHO leads several international alliances of governments, private sector and civil society organizations aiming at contributing to the elimination of blinding diseases. It also provides technical leadership to specific disease efforts which are deployed by its partners or the private sector to eliminate trachoma from the world by the year 2020.
For the last two decades WHO has worked with a network of international partners and private sector to ensure that appropriate, updated, good quality eye care solutions were made available to the people in need.
Since 2004, WHO in partnership with Lions Clubs International has established a global network of 45 childhood blindness centres in 35 countries for the preservation, restoration or rehabilitation of sight in children. This unique and innovative global project has served so far more than 150 million children and will open 10 additional eye care service centres for the children in 10 new countries in 2014. The centres will help combat to fight avoidable childhood blindness and help securing a future with full visual function for the children in need of care.
In response to the increasing burden of chronic eye disease WHO is coordinating a global research effort to map services and policies for controlling diabetic retinopathy, glaucoma, age-related macular degeneration and refractive errors.
Finally, to support comprehensive eye care systems, WHO continues to provide epidemiologic and public health technical support to its Member States.