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Blindness is one of the major health care problems in Bangladesh. About 675,000 people, including 40,000 children are blind. Eighty percent blindness is due to cataract, which is curable. It is estimated that globally, there are about 50 million people are currently blind and 180 million visually impaired. Each minute a child goes blind and each second an adult.

SCENARIO ABOUT BANGLADESH

# The area 147,570 sq. km. and population 147 million.
# 77% population resides in the rural areas, 36% lives below poverty level.4
# Literacy rate 43.1%.
# Life expectancy at birth was estimated to be 61.7 years in January 2004.3
# Per capita Gross National Income (GNI) in the year 2000 was US $380. 10
# Per capita Government annual expenditure for health and family planning is only US$ 3.3
# Number of blinds 675,000, 80% of which is due to cataract.5-6
# There is 20% new incidence every year creating an additional 120,000 blind people.11
# One ophthalmologist for every 210,000 against 0ne for 15000 in Taiwan.7
# 40% ophthalmologists reside in the Capital City Dhaka; rest in divisional and district headquarters, virtually none at Upazilla level.4
# Present Cataract Surgery Rate (CSR) is 1,000 per million against 1,800 necessary to deal with new cases and against 3,000 to control cataract blindness.8
# The World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that 1% of the Bangladesh population is blind.9
# There are 52 million children in the country, of whom 40,000 are blind and 2,00,000 visually impaired.