Teenage myopia problem of Macao in 2020

By Siu Lok Yiu, Yoyo

On September 26, the city was Macao.

"Myopia is serious in Macao, more than half of the students in the class that I am teaching have myopia, other classes also have the same problem," said Lucy Chan who teaches English to junior high school students in Yuetwah high school in Macao.

The myopia of Macao students is quite serious, the detection rate of myopia was 69.8% and 75.0% for male and female students aged between 6 to 22 years old respectively, according to the research report on the constitution of Macao Special Administrative Region in 2010. As for secondary school students, the detection rate of myopia reached 60.7% for male students and 64.7% for female students.

A similar problem is reported in mainland China as well. There are 600 million myopic sufferers in China, it means that almost half of the people in China have myopic vision. The myopia rate of high school and college students is more than 70%, and for primary school students, the rate is close to 40%, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Compared with the United States where the myopia rate of primary school students is just close to10%, Chinese teenagers have the highest ratio of myopia in the world, the WHO reported.

Myopia does not only affect people's health, but also will have a negative impact on the social development of the countries. Professions such as flight technology, navigation technology, fire engineering and other profession all have strict requirement on eyesight. If the myopia problem of teenagers is not tackled effectively, fewer and fewer people can be qualified to study these related majors and engage in these professions in the future.

According to the Xinhua news reporting, Chinese President Xi Jinping made an important instruction on August 28 that the teenage myopia problem is becoming high-risky as the age is getting younger and younger. This problem affects the physical and mental health of schoolchildren seriously, also affects the future of the country.

Following that, the Ministry of Education and other relevant departments are going to launch a plan to prevent and control myopia, including measures to ensure that primary and secondary school students have more than one hour of physical activity in a day, all the schools should have visual inspections twice in a semester and so on.

Chan thinks the situation about the myopia is quite serious in Macao too. She believes that the main reason is that Macao students frequent use of electronic devices for reading and playing, and most parents are busy with work and rarely control the time their children use the electronic devices.

"If the parents do not supervise children on the duration they play the electronic products, whatever plans launched by the government in this regard are useless," said Chan.

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