Blindness and severe visual impairment in pupils at schools for the blind in Burundi

Abstract

Purpose:To determine the causes of childhood blindness and severe visual impairment in pupils attending schools for the blind in Burundi in order to assist planning for services in the country.Materials and Methods:All pupils attending three schools for the blind in Burundi were examined. A modified WHO/PBL eye examination record form for children with blindness and low vision was used to record the findings. Data was analyzed for those who became blind or severely visually impaired before the age of 16 years.Results:Overall, 117 pupils who became visually impaired before 16 years of age were examined. Of these, 109 (93.2%) were blind or severely visually impaired. The major anatomical cause of blindness or severe visual impairment was cornea pathology/phthisis (23.9%), followed by lens pathology (18.3%), uveal lesions (14.7%) and optic nerve lesions (11.9%). In the majority of pupils with blindness or severe visual impairment, the underlying etiology of visual loss was unknown (74.3%). More than half of the pupils with lens related blindness had not had surgery; among those who had surgery, outcomes were generally poor.Conclusion:The causes identified indicate the importance of continuing preventive public health strategies, as well as the development of specialist pediatric ophthalmic services in the management of childhood blindness in Burundi. The geographic distribution of pupils at the schools for the blind indicates a need for community-based programs to identify and refer children in need of services.

Need for optical intervention in children attending a school for the blind in Eritrea

“…At presentation, six (6.5 per cent) children in this school had no vision impairment (VA better than 6/18) despite the admission criteria requesting a medical certificate of blindness or severe vision impairment. This finding is higher compared to other reports from Nepal (0.1 per cent), Ethiopia (3.1 per cent), India (0.3 per cent) and West Africa (1.9 per cent), and is comparable with schools for the blind in Malawi (10.5 per cent), Chile (6.1 per cent), Burundi (5.1 per cent) and East Africa (6.1 per cent) . Similarly, nearly 10 per cent of children had near vision better than or equal to 1.0 M which could be considered sufficient for reading mainstream school print media.…”

Retrospective data on causes of childhood vision impairment in Eritrea

“…Retinal disorders were responsible for vision loss in comparatively fewer children in this study (just the half of compared to the blind school survey [ 10 ]). Proportion of retinal blindness varies in between different countries and ranges from just over 2% in poor countries [ 19 , 20 ] to almost 50% in high income countries [ 4 ]. While retinitis pigmentosa and retinal dystrophies are common retinal causes of vision loss in children [ 21 ], ROP is an emerging condition especially in children in middle-income countries like Turkey [ 7 ] and Surinam [ 11 ].…”

Changing trends over the last decade in the aetiology of childhood blindness: a study from a tertiary referral centre

“…In the USA, ROP was one of the three leading causes of childhood blindness 6. In middle and low income countries, remarkably, a lower frequency of ROP-related SVI was reported in studies carried out on students in schools for the blind 9 14 19 20. Nevertheless such data are likely to be underrepresented due to higher mortality rates of premature infants in poor communities.…”