Number of blind to soar 170pc in next 25 years
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Wednesday July 08 2009
The number of blind people in the country will soar by 170pc in the next 25 years, a conference was told yesterday. The ageing population and the rise in numbers suffering from diabetes will send cases of blindness soaring.
There are currently 13,000 people who are blind or have impaired vision in the country, the International Conference of the International Council for Education of the Visually Impaired in Trinity College, Dublin, was told.
And as many as 30,000 are suffering from loss of sight because they do not have the correct spectacles.
The conference heard that the annual cost of blindness or vision impairment was between €100m and €200m.
Professor Jonathan Jackson of Queens University, Belfast, warned that "as our population ages, the numbers of individuals developing impaired vision is increasing rapidly".
- Eilish O'Regan
