The prevention and control of "small glasses" has achieved remarkable results in stages

The overall myopia rate of Chinese children and adolescents has declined

The prevention and control of "small glasses" has achieved remarkable results in stages

In August 2018, the Ministry of Education and other 8 departments jointly issued the "Implementation Plan for the Comprehensive Prevention and Control of Myopia in Children and Adolescents" (hereinafter referred to as the "Implementation Plan"). Recently, the Ministry of Education held a press conference to introduce the comprehensive prevention and control of myopia in children and adolescents in relevant departments since the introduction of the "Implementation Plan".

"After more than three years of unremitting efforts, the overall myopia rate of children and adolescents in China has declined." Wang Dengfeng, director of the Mechanism Office of the National Joint Conference on the Comprehensive Prevention and Control of Myopia in Children and Adolescents and director of the Department of Physical Education, Health and Art Education of the Ministry of Education, introduced at the meeting that the overall myopia rate of children and adolescents in China in 2019 was 50.2%, down 3.4 percentage points from 2018. Affected by the new crown pneumonia epidemic, the overall myopia rate of children and adolescents in China in 2020 was 52.7%, an increase of 2.5 percentage points over 2019, but it still decreased by 0.9 percentage points compared with 2018, basically achieving the prevention and control goal of 0.5 percentage points of the myopia rate of 0.5 percentage points per year in the "Comprehensive Prevention and Control of Children and Adolescents Myopia Implementation Plan".

Over the past three years, the whole society has mobilized and taken action to establish the basic cognition that "myopia is preventable, controllable, correctable, and incurable". The Ministry of Education and other departments pay attention to scientific guidance and health education, and pass on eye health expertise to the public in the form of science popularization. Experts, schools, teachers, parents, children, medical and health institutions, the media and other social pluralities participate, and a good atmosphere of myopia prevention and control with prevention and control and group prevention and control has been formed. The pattern of myopia prevention and control work of "government leadership, departmental coordination, implementation by schools and medical institutions, and social participation" has been basically established.

At present, the Ministry of Education actively promotes the reform pilot, and the two batches have selected and built 142 pilot counties (cities, districts) for the prevention and control of myopia in children and adolescents, and 46 pilot areas and demonstration areas for the reform of myopia prevention and control in children and adolescents nationwide.

In terms of myopia prevention and control personnel training, the Ministry of Education has supported 21 colleges and universities to open optometry medicine majors, 37 colleges and universities to open optometry majors, 86 colleges and universities to open health services and management majors, and 645 professional points such as optometry technology and health management in vocational schools.

In the next step, all members of the National Joint Conference on the Prevention and Control of Myopia in Children and Adolescents will take joint actions to implement the "Bright Action Work Plan for the Prevention and Control of Myopia in Children and Adolescents (2021-2025)" to promote new progress and breakthroughs in the prevention and control of myopia. Focus on monitoring the actual effects of comprehensive prevention and control in various localities and schools in terms of visual health knowledge awareness, improvement of students' eye behavior, implementation of physical education and health courses, physical health standard testing, health professional allocation, visual health environment improvement, vision monitoring data archiving, and completion of myopia prevention and control goals.

Source: People's Daily Overseas Edition