Background: The prevalence of congenital colour vision deficiency (CCVD) varies from race to race and differs in different geographic regions. Colour vision deficiency or colour blindness, is the inability or decreased ability of discriminating certain colour combinations and colour differences under normal lighting conditions. This study aimed to determine the prevalence of congenital colour vision deficiency among students at Hawassa University. Methods: A cross-sectional survey was employed involving 4004 students (females = 1171 and males = 2833) from four campuses, namely, Institutes of Technology, College of Health Science and Medicine, College of Agriculture and Main Campus. The Ishihara pseudo-isochromatic 24 plate edition was used to test the colour vision of students under natural day light condition. Results: The prevalence of CCVD in the present study was 2.85%. A hundred and six (3.75%) males and eight (0.68%) females were affected with congenital colour vision deficiency. The frequencies of achromacy, deutan and protan in male subjects were 4 (0.14%), 82 (2.89%), and 24 (0.85%), respectively. Deutan was highest among students of Amhara ethnic origin (38, 2.51%), but the frequency of protan was highest amongst Oromo students (10, 0.8%). Conclusion and recommendations:The overall prevalence of CCVD found in the present study was lower compared to the previous studies done in Ethiopia. There was clear variation in the prevalence of colour vision deficiency among students of various ethnic groups. Proper screening, education and counseling are needed to minimize impacts of CCVD in the country, and can also be beneficial for the affected subject in tackling difficulties in everyday work and for proper choice of future profession.

Anchote (Coccinia abyssinica (Lam.) Cogn.) is a perennial root crop belonging to Cucurbitaceae family. It is endemic to Ethiopia and distributed over wide range of agro-ecologies. For further improvement and efficient conservation of this crop, characterization of its genetic diversity and its pattern of distribution is a vitally important step. Expressed sequence tags-simple sequence repeats (EST-SSRs) markers were developed from publicly available watermelon [Citrullus lanatus (Thunb.) Matsum. & Nakai] ESTs in the GenBank database. Among those novel markers, eight were polymorphic and subsequently used for genetic diversity and population structure analyses of 30 anchote accessions collected from western Ethiopia. A total of 24 alleles were obtained across the eight polymorphic loci and 30 accessions that revealed moderate level of genetic diversity in this minor crop. Among the eight loci, locus CA_06 was the most informative with six alleles and polymorphic information content (PIC) of 0.76. The accessions showed about threefold variation in terms of genetic diversity, with expected heterozygosity (He) ranging from 0.15 (accession An) to 0.44 (accession Dg). Other accessions with higher genetic diversity include Ar and Gu (He = 0.43 and 0.41, respectively). Analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA) revealed that the variation within accessions and among accessions accounted for 84.7% and 15.3% of the total variation, respectively. The study revealed low but significant population differentiation in this crop with no clear pattern of population structure. The EST-SSR markers developed in this study are the first of their kind for anchote and can be used for characterization of its wider genetic resources for conservation and breeding purposes.

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