UNLABELLED Retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) is the main cause of avoidable blindness in children in Mexico despite National ROP Guidelines and examination of preterm infants being a legal requirement. OBJECTIVE To assess coverage of ROP programs and their compliance with national guidelines. STUDY DESIGN Thirty-two neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) in five of the largest states were vis...

We aimed to determine whether teleophthalmology has a place in the South African health care delivery system and its role in Vision 2020 in South Africa. We used a consensus process to determine its impact on the diagnosis and management of patients seen in a hospital eye clinic. Edendale Hospital, Pietermaritzburg, and Moorfields Eye Hospital, London, collaborated in this study involving 90 pa...

AIM To determine the prevalence and causes of vision loss in Indigenous Australians. DESIGN, SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS A national, stratified, random cluster sample was drawn from 30 communities across Australia that each included about 300 Indigenous people of all ages. A sample of non-Indigenous adults aged > or = 40 years was also tested at several remote sites for comparison. Participants ...

BACKGROUND Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as hypertension and diabetes are rapidly emerging public health problems worldwide, and they associate with primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG). POAG is the most common cause of irreversible blindness. The most effective ways to prevent glaucoma blindness involve identifying high-risk populations and conducting routine screening for early case det...

Globally, there are 314 million people with vision impairment, of whom 269 million people have low vision and 45 million are blind [1,2]. The geographic distribution of visual impairment is not uniform and more than 90% of the world’s visually impaired live in developing countries. Sub-Saharan Africa, with around 11% of the world’s population, has about 20% of the world’s blindness [1]. This re...

BACKGROUND The northeastern region (NER) of India is geographically isolated and ethno-culturally different from the rest of the country. There is lacuna regarding the data on causes of blindness and severe visual impairment in children from this region. AIM To determine the causes of severe visual impairment and blindness amongst children from schools for the blind in the four states of NER ...

Background. Primary open angle glaucoma (POAG) is progressive chronic optic neuropathy in adults in which intraocular pressure (IOP) and other currently unknown factors contribute to damage. POAG is the second commonest cause of avoidable blindness in Nigeria. Pattern of Presentation. POAG is characterized by late presentation. Absence of pain which is a driving force for seeking medical help, ...

OBJECTIVE To examine the prevalence of blindness, visual impairment, and related eye diseases and conditions among adults in El Salvador, and to explore socioeconomic inequalities in their prevalence by education level and occupational status, stratified by sex. METHODS Based upon the Rapid Assessment of Avoidable Blindness (RAAB) methodology, this nationwide sample comprised 3 800 participan...

Background Avoidable mortality as an indicator for assessing the health system performance has caught the attention of researchers for a long time. In this study we aimed to compare the health system performance using this indicator in rural and urban areas of one of Iran’s southern provinces.   Methods All deaths (29916) which happened during 2004–2011 in Bushehr province were assessed. Nolte ...