Important data about blindness in Nigeria
A survey of blindness and low vision in Nigeria has found that nearly half a million adults in the country are in immediate need of cataract surgery.
Initiated by the Federal Ministry of Health, and supported by Sightsavers, the survey of adults aged 40 and above provides important data about the number of people in Nigeria who are blind and visually impaired, and the causes of this. This information had previously been lacking.
As well as the 486,000 adults across the country who are in immediate need of cataract surgery, other important causes of blindness were glaucoma (a condition where the optic nerve is damaged, often by high pressure inside the eye), corneal scarring and poor procedures for cataract surgery. River blindness and trachoma together accounted for five percent of blindness.
Couching
The survey found that almost half of all procedures for blinding cataract undergone by survey participants had been performed by herbalists (“couching”) and this was more common in the north of the country. During couching an instrument is used to dislocate the opaque lens away from the pupil, into the back of the eye but this is often associated with complications.
As in many developing countries, Nigeria suffers from a lack of trained staff and equipment to enable the backlog of cataract operations to be reduced. In this part of Africa, the number of ophthalmologists is less than one per million people.
Extrapolating the data from the survey to the total population, the prevalence of blindness in Nigeria is estimated to be 0.78%.
The survey’s other key preliminary findings:
- In Nigeria, over 1,000,000 adults are blind and another 3,000,000 are visually impaired.
- 42 out of every 1000 adults aged 40 and above are blind.
- Overall, two out of three Nigerians are blind from causes which could be avoided, such as cataract, which is the single commonest cause of blindness.
- Blindness is almost three times more common in the dry northern areas (the Sahel) than in southern delta areas.
Illiterate participants were twice as likely to be blind as those who were literate.
Sightsavers has been working to prevent and cure blindness in Nigeria for over 40 years, as well as support people who are permanently blind and visually impaired. Sightsavers’ Country Representative in Nigeria, Dr Elizabeth Elhassan said: “Nigerians now account for one in five Africans and the survey indicates the growing and urgent need to increase access to eye care as well as the importance of reaching people who are illiterate.”
An additional benefit of the survey is that the findings are applicable to almost 100 million people who live in surrounding countries that share similar ecological zones to Nigeria such as Benin, Togo and Niger.
As a direct result of the survey, over 3500 cataract operations were performed, 5800 pairs of reading glasses dispensed, more than 200 pairs of aphakic glasses (for people who are missing a lens in their eye) distributed at no cost, and thousands with minor ailments were treated.
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