Is uncorrected visual acuity considered for inclusion in local indicators for high school entrance exam? Get how hot myopia prevention and control is in just one minute!

Recently, an online report titled “the Ministry of Education includes UCVA in evaluation indicators of high school entrance exam” aroused a heated debate in the industry. Although this is merely a “misinterpretation” of the suggestion that local high school entrance exam include UCVA in evaluation indicators for overall qualities of physical education in high school entrance exam, it also highlights the fact that myopia prevention and control in China has been a focus of attention of many stakeholders including government, press and the industry nowadays.

 

Indeed, from a circular issued by the Ministry of Education and National Health Commission in 2018 including myopia prevention and control in the government performance appraisal indicators, to comprehensive myopia prevention and control programs issued by provinces and municipalities for children and teenagers to implement this policy, and then to the first “China Eye Health Whitepaper” issued by the National Health Commission this year, myopia prevention and control has always been a focus of attention of the government over the past years.

 

According to rough statistics, there are 27 provincial administrative regions across the country that have enacted provincial “implementation/action plan for prevention and control of myopia for children and teenagers”. In addition to such ways of guidance, various regions introduced other guiding policies, such as Fujian, where maintaining vision health is included in performance appraisal of schools and class teachers as a duty of teachers.

 

Provincial implementation/action plans for prevention and control of myopia of children and teenagers issued in selected provinces (municipalities and autonomous regions) in China

 

According to authoritative statistics, there are nearly 700 million myopic individuals in China, making China the largest myopic country and also the country with the highest myopia incidence, with a 67% myopia incidence among urban teenagers. According to a People’s Daily report, China’s myopic population is expected to exceed 700 million in 2020, of which 40 million~ 51.50 million people will be highly myopic.

 

The traditional approach to vision correction is wearing glasses (frame glasses and contact lens), but the view field is limited after wearing frame glasses, which causes numerous inconveniences to daily life occasions such as sports and bathing, while prolonged use of contact lens would result in dry eyes and easily cause eye infection.

 

Therefore, more and more teenager patients nowadays choose to correct myopia through orthokeratology lens. Myopia patients can exert a certain pressure on cornea by wearing orthokeratology lens at night, thus changing the form of cornea and subsequently increasing the uncorrected visual acuity during daytime. According to the statistics released by the ophthalmology and optometry branch of China Association for Medical Devices Industry, 643,000 pairs of orthokeratology lens were sold in China in 2015, with a CAGR of about 44.11% from 2011 to 2015. Based on calculation, however, about 1.08 million people wore orthokeratology lens in 2019, registering a penetration rate of 1.05%, which is still relatively low

 

As a domestically famous ophthalmic high-value consumable manufacturer, Haohai Biological Technology is actively establishing its presence in the field of myopia prevention and control. The company is actively developing such myopia-correcting products as orthokeratology lens, sclera contact lens and peripheral off-focus soft corneal contact lens using the internally-developed lens design system and based on the highly permeable materials and silicone hydrogel material developed by Contamac. Of them, orthokeratology lens products have completed registration and validation and are currently at the clinical trial phase.

 

Nowadays, more and more adult myopia patients are inclined to choose to fundamentally resolve the myopic troubles through corneal refractive surgery or intraocular refractive surgery, therefore, while actively developing products for myopia prevention and control for teenagers, the posterior chamber phakic refractive lens PRL under the flag of Haohai Biological Technology also provides a myopia solution for highly myopic adult population.

 

Among them, the “TransPRK”, “Lasik” and “SMILE” as we commonly know are all corneal refractive surgeries, while the prevailing intraocular refractive surgery is phakic intraocular lens (PIOL) implantation. Compared with corneal refractive surgery, PIOL implantation has a broader range of correction, a better choice especially for patients who are highly myopic (over 600 diopters), suffer over 400 diopters of hyperopia and too thin corneas.

 

Currently, the PIOL implantation consists mainly of posterior chamber intraocular lens implantation, which exists in two types on the domestic markets, one being implantable contact lens (ICL) and the other being phakic refractive lens(PRL). Compared with ICL, PRL’s myopia correction range can reach 1000 diopters to 3000 diopters, especially filling the gap in the correction technology for ultra-high myopia of 1800 diopters to 3000 diopters. Meanwhile, compared with ICL, PRL has lower requirements for the anterior chamber depth of patients and can resolve some of challenges of getting rid of glasses for myopia patients who cannot accept ICL surgery due to insufficient anterior chamber depth.

 

In the future, Haohai Biological Technology will deepen its presence across the ophthalmic industry chain, expand the competitive edge of its ophthalmic product line and inject new driving force into the sustainable development of its ophthalmic business by focusing on four therapeutic fields of cataract, optometry, ocular surface and ocular fundus.