In order to access vital help - such as white cane training, adaptations to their homes and machines to help with reading - patients must be officially certified as blind.
Pegcetacoplan tackles dry age-related macular degeneration, or dry AMD, which affects more than 500,000 Britons and causes a quarter of severe sight- loss cases in the UK.
Thousands of people at risk of blindness could be spared monthly injections thanks to a new drug (file photo) that slows the progression of common eye problem, retinal vein occlusion.