Prevalence of myopia in school children in Vanuatu

The onset of myopia typically occurs in childhood and increases during puberty. We studied the vision and refractive errors of 977 school children (ages 6 to 17 years) in 1983. Myopia in the group was extremely low; 97% had vision of 6/6, and 1.3% had myopia greater than 0.25D. Regression analysis revealed a change in mean refraction of -0.016D/year for males and -0.024D/year for females. There were no significant differences between males and females. These children engaged in about 8 hours of school work per day, and we conclude that genetic factors predominate over environmental factors in the determination of myopic refractive errors for this group.