China promotes prevention and control of myopia as part of its national health policy

Global Times

6th June 2021

China promotes prevention and control of myopia as part of its national health policy

By Global Times

The widespread short-sightedness problem has once again become a hot topic on the internet on the 26th Chinese National Eye Care Day on Sunday. According to data recently released by the Chinese National Health Commission, the overall prevalence of myopia among children and adolescents in China is 53.6%, with 81% for high school students and 90% for college students, according to a report by China Central Television.

The theme of this year's Eye Care Day is "Focus on Universal Eye Health." A survey by the World Health Organization revealed that about 600 million people in China, nearly half the population, have myopia, Xinhua news agency reported. Eye specialists told the Global Times that myopia has become a major health problem for the Chinese people and has received much wider attention. In recent years, preventing and controlling myopia has been promoted as a national health strategy.

Experts attribute the soaring rate of myopia in China to unhealthy lifestyles. "For adolescents, the increasing pressure of study makes them spend too much time indoors studying without enough time for outdoor exercise. And many youngsters in China nowadays are indulged in computer games or internet surfing, focusing their eyes on fluorescent screens for long periods of time," an attending physician surnamed Zhang, from the Ophthalmology Department of the Peking University First Hospital, told the Global Times on Sunday.

https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202106/1225538.shtml