Pediatric Ocular Disease in Africa—Or How I Met Gunter K. von Noorden

Abstract

Most of the 1.5 million blind children in the world live in developing countries in Asia and Africa. Unlike pediatric blinding conditions in industrialized nations, most of the early vision loss in the third world is due to perinatal or early childhood conditions involving the cornea. Up to 75% of this blindness is preventable by simple public health measures. The available data is discussed and intervention strategies are described.