Prevalence and causes of blindness and visual impairment in Sokoto State, Nigeria: Baseline data for Vision 2020: The right to sight eye care programme

Abstract

Purpose:To estimate the prevalence of low vision and blindness, identify the causes, and suggest policies for an effective eye care program based on 2005 data from Sokoto State, Nigeria.Materials and Methods:A stratified two-stage cluster sampling method was used to quantify the prevalence of blindness and the causes from 4 health zones in Sokoto State. Subjects were evaluated using a magnifying loupe, direct ophthalmoscope and torchlight. Data were collected based on the World Health Organization prevention of blindness coding for an eye examination. Prevalences with 95% confidence intervals (CI) were calculated and surgical coverage for causes of blindness was also analyzed.Results:The response rate was 91%. The prevalence of bilateral blindness was 1.9% (95% CI: 1.5–2.3%) ranging from 1.6% to 2.0% across the four health zones. The prevalence was 2.1% (95% CI: 1.6–2.6%) in males and 1.6% (95% CI: 1.1–2.1%) in females. The leading cause of bilateral blindness was cataract (51.6%), followed by uncorrected aphakia (20.9%) and glaucoma (11%). The prevalence of bilateral operable cataract was 1.9% (95% CI: 1.5–2.3%). The cataract surgical coverage (individuals with visual acuity <6/60) for the study was lower than the couching coverage (4.4% vs. 14.9%, respectively). Surgical coverage for trichiasis was 4.4%. The major barrier to cataract and glaucoma management was cost.Conclusions:The prevalence of blindness in Sokoto State is high yet the main causes are largely avoidable. Barriers can be reduced by appropriate health education regarding the eye care program and the provision of integrated, sustainable, affordable and equitable services.

Eye health seeking habits and barriers to accessing curative services among blind beggars in an urban community in Northern Nigeria

“…This finding is comparable to what was obtained in an earlier study in Sokoto state. [19] The barriers also have some similarities to factors observed in other barrier studies in Nigeria, [20][21][22][23] and elsewhere. [24,25] In many rural areas of the world, poverty is a major issue, hence residents are not able to afford the cost of eye care services and therefore conditions which could have been treated at an early stage are not attended to and may result in low vision and irreversible blindness.…”

Prevalence and causes of blindness and visual impairment; and cataract surgical services in Katsina state of Nigeria

“…The prevalence of cataract blindness in this study area is higher than that reported in neighbouring Sokoto state (1.9%). 13 The CSC for persons (VA <6/60) for the study area (28%) is much lower than the findings in neighbouring Sokoto state of Nigeria (62%), 13 and also in Tanzania (65%) 14 and Nakuru, Kenya (71%). 15 Even though this coverage rate was a remarkable improvement from surgical coverage of 4% reported about two decades ago in a subdistrict of the state, 5 it is still very low.…”

“…The major causes of blindness and SVI in the study compare to the finding in a nearby population where cataract-related causes constituted 72.5% of causes of blindness. 13 Cataract and refractive error alone are responsible for over 86% of all forms of VI in the study area. This suggests that even though there may have been improvement in eye services in the state over the last two decades, these services are still suboptimal as basic uncorrected refractive error is not being adequately addressed.…”

“…Indeed, cost of accessing cataract services featured as a major barrier to having cataract surgery among the study population. In contrast, the cataract services in the neighbouring Sokoto state, which reported a higher surgical coverage, 13 were based on outreach services whereby cataract surgeries are taken to the remote rural areas and were offered for a longer period of time. This indicates the need for an eye care programme with strengthened cataract surgical services by decentralising the services to be more accessible and affordable to remote areas.…”

Prevalence and associated factors of visual impairment among adults at Debre Berhan Town, North Shewa, Ethiopia.

“…Prevalence of visual impairment among adults aged 18 years in this study was 16.8% (95% CI: 13.5%, 20.2%) which is higher than other studies done in South Sudan (11.8%) [9], Cape Town South Africa (7.2%) [15], Sokoto state of Nigeria (11%) [16], Atakunmosa, South Western Nigeria (7.4%) [17], Bangladesh (9.3%) [18], Malaysia (9.2%) [19], South Korea (4.3%) [20], East Delhi district of India (11.4%) [5], Mahabubanagar district of India (8.4%) [21], Iran (1.39%) [22] and Botucato, Brazil The prevalence of visual impairment in this study is lower than the studies reported by Upper Egypt (38.8%) [8], Cocoa farmers of Ghana (22.7%) [7], Saudi (23.5%) [24] and rural areas of Coastal Karantaka, India (25.7%) [6].…”