27.03.12
Global shortage of ophthalmologists
There is a significant shortfall of trained eye doctors in many countries and capacity is not keeping pace with the demands of ageing populations, research published in the British Journal of Ophthalmology suggests.
A survey of 192 countries showed that there were 205,000 ophthalmologists in 2010; which ranged from some countries with 0, to 28,000 inChina. 131 countries had less than 5% of the total number between them.
The average number of ophthalmologists per million of the population varied according to the level of economic development, ranging from nine per million in low income countries to 79 per million in high income countries – an eightfold difference.
The lowest average number was in Sub-Saharan Africa (2.7), while the highest numbers were in former communist regimes (83.8) – a 30-fold difference.
There were less than one ophthalmologist per million of the population in 23 countries and one to four per million of the population in 30 countries. In 48 countries there were four to 25 per million of the population, and 25 to 100 in 74 countries.
Just 18 countries had more than 100 ophthalmologists per million of the population.
The authors said: “The implication [is] that in a number of countries, both developing and developed, it will be extremely challenging to train enough ophthalmologists to provide the care that will be needed in the years to come.
“It is necessary to begin aggressively training eye care teams now to alleviate both the current shortfall in developing countries and the anticipated shortfall in developed countries.”