Gujarat sees 20% surge in child myopia cases post-Covid, experts blame screens and indoor lifestyles

Ophthalmologists gathered in Ahmedabad this past weekend for the All Gujarat Ophthalmological Society summit with a troubling trend to discuss: since the pandemic ended, eye doctors across Gujarat's cities have been seeing far more children with myopia than they did before Covid struck. The numbers tell the story plainly. In urban areas of the state, pediatric myopia cases have climbed 20% compared to pre-pandemic levels—a jump significant enough that it has become the focus of a two-day conference dedicated entirely to understanding what's driving it and how to reverse course.

Dr. Jagdish Rana, who serves as secretary of AGOS, laid out the conventional explanation first: screens. Children have spent more time on digital devices since the pandemic, and that prolonged focus on near objects is part of the problem. But Rana was careful to name something equally important that often gets overlooked in these conversations. The real issue, he suggested, is not screens alone. It's that eyes have stopped being trained to see far away. When a child spends hours looking at a phone or tablet, their visual system adapts to that distance. When they rarely venture outside to look at trees, buildings, and horizons—the natural work of distance vision—their eyes lose the ability to focus properly on objects that aren't close. The pandemic forced children indoors. Schools moved online. Play moved inside. Even as restrictions lifted, many families have not returned to the outdoor habits they once had. The eyes, in other words, have forgotten how to work.

Myopia itself is straightforward enough in its mechanics. Light enters the eye and focuses in front of the retina rather than directly on it, either because the eyeball has become slightly longer or the cornea has curved too steeply. The result is clear vision up close and blur at a distance. A child might hold a book inches from their face. They might sit at the front of the classroom to see the board. They might rub their eyes constantly, complaining of strain and headaches. They might struggle to read road signs or see the television from across the room. Left untreated, myopia tends to worsen over time, and that progression carries real consequences—difficulty driving, limitations on certain careers, and the compounding eye strain that comes from constantly fighting to see what should be clear.

What makes the current surge notable is its timing and its scale. A 20% increase in a single region in a single year is not a gradual drift. It's a visible shift in the health of an entire generation of children. The summit organizers have structured the conference around prevention and treatment, signaling that they see this not as inevitable but as something that can be addressed. The message from Rana and his colleagues is direct: parents need to prioritize outdoor time. Not as a luxury or a nice addition to a child's day, but as a medical necessity. Eyes need distance. They need to practice seeing far. They need sunlight, which research has shown may play a role in slowing myopia progression. The conference will explore what those preventive measures look like in practice, what treatment options exist for children already affected, and how to communicate the urgency of this shift to families who have grown accustomed to indoor, screen-centered routines.