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Background: Human Immunodeficiency Virus remains an important cause of morbidity and mortality especially in sub-Saharan Africa. Despite the availability of highly active antiretroviral therapy, many people with this disease still present with its ocular complications. Cataracts remain the commonest reason for blindness in Nigeria and globally. The prevalence of HIV infection among cataract patients in south east Nigeria has remained unknown. Objectives: To determine the prevalence of human immunodeficiency virus among cataract patients in south east Nigeria. Materials and Methods: This was a retrospective cross-sectional study. The case files of all who had cataract surgery between September 1st, 2020 to March 31st, 2021 at City of Refuge Specialist Eye Clinic Onitsha, Nigeria was obtained from the Medical Record Department of the hospital to extract relevant information and demographic data. The outcome measures included the prevalence of HIV, as well as the gender and the age of affected cataract patients. Data was analyzed using SPSS 26.0 IBM Corporation. Fisher’s exact test was performed for categorical data, and Student’s t-test was applied to continuous variables depending on their distribution. A p value of <0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: In this study, 423 participants who underwent cataract surgery were included for analysis of which 16 were HIV positive. The overall seroprevalence of HIV among the study population was 3.78% with HIV prevalence showing the female to male ratio of 1:1. Up to 70.81% of the patients were at least 60 years of age. Although there was a statistically significant difference between the prevalence of HIV and seasonal presentation (p=0.015), there was no statistically significant relationship between the participants age and gender (p=0.195), prevalence of HIV and the participants’ age categories (p=0.149) or participants’ settlements (p=0.219). Conclusion: The prevalence of HIV among cataract patients in this study was 3.78%. This study confirms that HIV infections are an important public problem among cataract patients in Nigeria. Our findings draw attention to the significant burden HIV has on cataract surgery in Nigeria. We recommend advocacy for the national policymakers to initiate HIV tests in routine ophthalmology services.

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Objective: To determine the awareness of phacoemulsification among post operative cataract patients. Methods: This was a prospective descriptive cross-sectional study to assess the knowledge of phacoemulsification among postoperative cataract patients that presented in community eye care outreaches in 3 local government areas of Anambra State Nigeria between June 21st 2021 to June 25th 2021. Results: The total number of people that attended the outreaches during the study period were 975. Out of these, 167 participants had cataract surgery but only 155 (n=155/167) consented to the study, giving a response rate of 92.8%. The mean age was 67±13 years with an age range of 18 to 93 years. The male: female ratio was 1: 1.2. There were more females (n=84/155, 54.2%) than males (n=71/155, 45.8%).Majority obtained only primary education (n=74/155, 47.7%), while 20.6% (n=32/155) obtained secondary education, 14.2% (n=22/155) obtained tertiary education while 17.4% (n=27/155) had no formal education Conclusion: Most cataract blind people in Nigeria are not aware of phacoemulsification cataract surgery and therefore may limit options for modern treatment of cataract blindness, even though this modern method of cataract treatment has been in place for decades in other countries.

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