He Wei, member of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), proposed to establish a “Quaternity” myopia prevention and control system

In recent years, the children and adolescents tend to develop myopia at an younger age and with higher degrees, and myopia has become one of the major public health issues affecting the health of children and adolescents. According to data released by the National Health Commission of the P.R.C., the overall incidence rate of myopia in children and adolescents in China was 53.6% in 2018. He Wei, member of the National Committee of the CPPCC and director of He Eye Specialist Hospital, said in an international online interview that he recommended “innovative technology + innovative model” to help the children and adolescents prevent and control myopia, and to realize the accurate and effective prevention and control.

“The children and adolescents develop myopia more easily at an earlier age and with higher degrees. Without effective interventions, high myopia is easy to induce fundus lesions, thus causing irreversible visual impairment.” As an ophthalmologist, He Wei has always been concerned about the prevention and control of myopia in children and adolescents.

In this year’s proposal, He Wei suggested establishing a “Quaternity” myopia prevention and control system led by the government and closely linked by parents, schools and medical institutions, establishing a child and adolescent vision health electronic file to achieve life-long data tracking and predicting the development of myopia trend.

At the same time, he suggested that the primary and secondary schools, if possible, should be equipped with self-service eye health examination equipment with functions of eye health examination, obtaining refractive status and basic eye disease data. School doctors and health physicians should perform daily eye health examinations and upload the data to the Cloud. Relying on medical institutions, the universally available out-of-school diagnosis network shall be laid to provide comprehensive and customized eye health examinations and realize the personalized interventions in prevention and control.

He Wei said that the hidden danger of high myopia in genes can be found from a genetic point of view, and the risk factors leading to its occurrence can be avoided in a targeted manner, so as to prevent the occurrence of high myopia and reduce the proportion of high myopia.

He Wei also gave specific suggestions for students who regularly take online courses. He said: “The courseware should use a larger font size. When the continuous video study time exceeds 30 minutes, the student should have a rest for at least 10 minutes, and play outside for 2 hours a day.”

The eyes are the windows of the soul. Myopia will bring inconvenience to children’s daily life, and especially the high myopia will reduce learning and life quality with the reduction of visual space and self-limiting living range. About the problem of children’s psychovisual disorders, He Wei suggested applying psychological knowledge to the clinic and establishing the psychovisual counseling room in the hospital to provide psychovisual evaluation for the children and thus help them solve the problem of psychovisual disorders.