How can we stop the myopia epidemic plaguing the world?

“The pandemic of Covid-19 has not only transformed the way children learn and see the world, it has changed the shape of their eyeballs,” begin Nature. In a long article for the general public, the scientific journal recounts how the time spent in front of screens, partly imposed by confinements, whether to follow online courses, stay in touch with friends or play, has forced the eyes of small to adapt to near vision.

This adaptation involves an elongation of the eyeballs, which improves the sharpness of nearby images on the light-sensitive membrane that lines the back of the eye, called the retina. But this transformation also makes distant objects blurry. These are the symptoms of a very common condition: myopia.

Pre-pandemic projections were already anticipating a future myopia epidemic. But what shows the studies carried out since then, throughout the world, is much more alarming. For Neelam Pawar, pediatric ophthalmologist at Aravind Eye Hospital in Tirunelveli, India, the incid rate