Research: Every third child in the world is nearsighted – Corona made the situation worse

Which the third child in the world is myopic, according to a major international study that collected data from 50 different countries. Corona made the situation worse, when children were more inside with terminals and less outside.

Research has been published in the British Journal of Ophthalmologyand has reported on it, among other things British broadcasting company BBC.

Myopia is becoming more common all over the world. By 2050, there will be millions more myopic children than today, researchers estimate. At that time, up to 40 percent of the world’s children would be myopic, the study estimates.

Today, the most myopic people are in Asia. In Japan, the share is as much as 85 percent, in South Korea 73 percent. In China and Russia, the share rises to more than 40 percent.

According to the study, 28 percent of Swedish children are myopic. Finland was not included in the comparison.

The study was a so-called meta-analysis, which combined data from nearly 300 different studies and more than five million children and youth from 50 countries on all continents.

From the year From 1990 to 2023, the prevalence of myopia has tripled and in 2023 had risen to an average of 36 percent worldwide.

The increase in the share was especially sharp during the corona years, the study showed.

Myopia usually starts in elementary school and gets worse as long as the eye grows, i.e. until around 20 years of age. There are hereditary reasons, but also environmental factors. One of them is starting school at a very young age. For example, in Hong Kong people go to school at the age of two and in Singapore at the age of three.

In Africa, school typically starts at the age of six to eight years, and there, according to research, myopia is seven times less common than in Asia.