Prevalence and causes of vision loss in sub-Saharan Africa in 2015: magnitude, temporal trends and projections
Date
2020Author
Kovin, Naidoo
Kempen, John H
Gichuhi, Stephen
Braithwaite, Tasanee
Casson, Robert J
Cicinelli, Maria V
Aditi, Das
Flaxman, Seth R
Jonas, Jost B
Keeffe, Jill E
Janet, Leasher
Limburg, Hans
Pesudovs, Konrad
Resnikoff, Serge
Alexander, J Silvester
Nina, Tahhan
Taylor, Hugh R
Wong, Tien Y
Boure, Rupert R A
Type
ArticleLanguage
enMetadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Background: This study aimed to assess the prevalence and causes of vision loss in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) in 2015, compared with prior years, and to estimate expected values for 2020.
Methods: A systematic review and meta-analysis assessed the prevalence of blindness (presenting distance visual acuity <3/60 in the better eye), moderate and severe vision impairment (MSVI; presenting distance visual acuity <6/18 but ≥3/60) and mild vision impairment (MVI; presenting distance visual acuity <6/12 and ≥6/18), and also near vision impairment (<N6 or N8 in the presence of ≥6/12 best-corrected distance visual acuity) in SSA for 1990, 2010, 2015 and 2020.In SSA, age-standardised prevalence of blindness, MSVI and MVI in 2015 were 1.03% (80% uncertainty interval (UI) 0.39-1.81), 3.64% (80% UI 1.71-5.94) and 2.94% (80% UI 1.05-5.34), respectively, for male and 1.08% (80% UI 0.40-1.93), 3.84% (80% UI 1.72-6.37) and 3.06% (80% UI 1.07-5.61) for females, constituting a significant decrease since 2010 for both genders. There were an estimated 4.28 million blind individuals and 17.36 million individuals with MSVI; 101.08 million individuals were estimated to have near vision loss due to presbyopia. Cataract was the most common cause of blindness (40.1%), whereas undercorrected refractive error (URE) (48.5%) was the most common cause of MSVI. Sub-Saharan West Africa had the highest proportion of blindness compared with the other SSA subregions.
Conclusions: Cataract and URE, two of the major causes of blindness and vision impairment, are reversible with treatment and thus promising targets to alleviate vision impairment in SSA.
Keywords: epidemiology; public health.
Citation
Naidoo K, Kempen JH, Gichuhi S, Braithwaite T, Casson RJ, Cicinelli MV, Das A, Flaxman SR, Jonas JB, Keeffe JE, Leasher J, Limburg H, Pesudovs K, Resnikoff S, Silvester AJ, Tahhan N, Taylor HR, Wong TY, Bourne RRA; Vision Loss Expert Group of the Global Burden of Disease Study. Prevalence and causes of vision loss in sub-Saharan Africa in 2015: magnitude, temporal trends and projections. Br J Ophthalmol. 2020 Mar 30:bjophthalmol-2019-315217. doi: 10.1136/bjophthalmol-2019-315217. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 32229517.Publisher
University of Nairobi
Rights
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United StatesUsage Rights
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/Collections
- Faculty of Health Sciences (FHS) [10377]
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