This year Eye Care Awareness Month is scheduled from 23 rd September to 18 th October 2026. The campaign focuses on promoting eye health, encouraging annual eye tests, and highlighting that 75% of blindness is preventable or treatable.

This awareness month aims to achieve the following:
1. Prevent Avoidable Blindness: By educating the public on managing major risks like cataracts and glaucoma.
2. Encourage Exams: Promote comprehensive eye tests at least once a year.
3. Spot Early Symptoms: Highlight warning signs like sudden vision loss, eye pain, or visual field changes.

Apart from having regular eye exams, it is important to be aware of some of the common symptoms of these and other serious ocular conditions. Symptoms may include vision loss, eye pain, visual field loss, altered eye movements, bulging eyes, sensitivity to glare, and difficulty seeing at night. Cataracts and glaucoma are two serious eye conditions that should be checked for. A cataract is a clouding of the clear lens inside the eye. Glaucoma is damage to the optic nerve at the back of the eye, often caused by high fluid pressure. The primary difference in warning signs is that cataracts cause blurry, clouded vision, while glaucoma quietly destroys peripheral vision with few early symptoms. This Eye Care Awareness Month prioritise your vision and ensure you and your family have had your eyes tested recently.

Sources: South African Government, Retina South Africa.