Background

Ethiopia has one of the highest burdens of blindness and vision impairment worldwide. However, the only nationwide blindness survey was conducted 20 years ago in 2005/6. This Rapid Assessment of Avoidable Blindness (RAAB) Survey provided representative, population-based estimate of the magnitude and causes of blindness and vision impairment in 50 years and older population in West Gojam Zone and Bahirdar City Administrations.


Key Findings

The prevalence of blindness in people aged ≥50 years was 3.0% in the study population.

The prevalence of blindness was significantly higher among women (3.7%) than men (2.1%).

The prevalence of bilateral vision impairment (VI) was 9.6%, with severe VI significantly higher among women (1.9%) than men (0.8%).

The three most common causes of blindness were cataract (43.4%), glaucoma (14.8%) and age-related macular degeneration (13.9%). About 82% of the blindness was avoidable.

The most common causes of severe visual impairment were untreated cataract (60.7%), posterior segment diseases (8.9%), trachomatous corneal opacity (7.1%), and cataract surgical complications (7.1%).

Effective Cataract Surgical Coverage (eCSC), at <6/12 surgical threshold) was 13.0%.

Disability prevalence was 5.6%, vision related disability was 3.6%.