New progress in China's campaign against youth myopia

By Zhu Bochen
0 Comment(s)Print E-mail China.org.cn, June 12, 2022
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A student has her eyesight checked in Donglin Primary School in Donglin Township of Huzhou City, east China's Zhejiang Province, Sept. 4, 2018. [Photo/Xinhua]

With phased myopia prevention models introduced and innovative therapies combining both Chinese and Western medicine, China is making new progress in addressing vision impairments among the country's younger generation.

Part of that initiative is being driven by this year's month-long anti-myopia publicity campaign, launched by the Ministry of Education, which officially kicked off on May 15. Over the past few weeks, vision professionals across the nation have worked to raise public awareness of eye care, encourage teenagers to engage more in outdoor exercise, and correct bad habits that affect eye health.

For instance, Aier Eye Hospital, a leading Chinese ophthalmology hospital group, introduced a one-stop personalized diagnosis and treatment model on China's National Eye Care Day on June 6 to prevent and control myopia among children and teenagers aged 3 to 18.

Their model involves five aspects, including myopia prevention, prediction, standardization, and personalization of the treatment process, and supporting parents' participation. The hospital also suggests parents keep a record of their children's refraction test results from the age of 3 and take them to vision tests twice a year.

While existing Western medical therapies such as laser surgery or implant procedures are indispensable to correct myopia, traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has offered several other effective approaches.

On June 5, a clinical practice guideline for suitable TCM-based techniques for myopia prevention and control was published. The guideline proposed a total of nine TCM therapies that have been proven effective in treating myopia, such as moxibustion, acupressure, and TCM fumigation. Already applied in optometry clinics in Yunnan and Heilongjiang provinces, these techniques can adjust blood flow to the eye and improve hypoxia.

Statistics from the National Health Commission (NHC) show that the prevalence of myopia among Chinese children and teenagers was 52.7% in 2020, 0.9 percentage points lower than in 2018. Specifically, the myopia rate for children aged 6 stood at 14.3%, and that for students in primary school, middle school, and high school reached 35.6%, 71.1%, and 80.5%, respectively.

As the COVID-19 pandemic has brought most learning activities online and reduced children's outdoor activities, myopia prevention and control are facing tremendous pressure.

In 2018, China rolled out an action plan and set the target of reducing the overall myopia rate for children and adolescents by more than 0.5 percentage points per year by 2023. The NHC also unveiled the country's five-year vision care plan this January and vowed to improve the coverage rate of eye care and vision testing services to over 90% for children aged six and below by the end of 2025.

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