Half a million Sudanese blind: report
Oct 11, 2005 (KHARTOUM) — Sudan has more than half a million blind people out a total population of 40 million, with the condition causing the country an estimated 1.5 million dollars in economic losses each day, a health report said Tuesday.
The report released by the National Programme for Combating Blindness found that cataracts or color vision deficiency was the leading cause of blindness which affects more than one percent of Sudanese.
They account for about 60 percent of the cases.
Trachoma, a chronic follicular conjunctivitis that leads to scarring in the conjunctiva and cornea, accounted for 18 percent of the cases followed by glaucoma, responsible for 17 percent of cases.
Other diseases, including river blindness or Onchocerciasis, an eye and skin disease caused by a worm, cause five percent of the cases of blindness. It is one of the world’s leading infectious causes of blindness.
The report pointed to the possibility of reducing cataract infections to five percent over the next few years but cited lack of expertise in the field of cataract surgery as a main problem.
It also outlined a national programme to eradicate blindness throughout the country by 2020, a target that may be hard to achieve given the scarcity of eye doctors in the country.
Sudan has only 120 eye specialists, including 92 in the capital Khartoum. The remainder are spread across other regions of northern Sudan while none are to be found in southern Sudan, according to the report.
(AFP)
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The following is another paper from SUNA on the same subject:
Oct 12, 2005 (KHARTOUM) — The National Plan for Blindness Control launches a one day free treatment in all the eye hospitals of the Sudan on Thursday October the 13th marking the celebration by the World Sight Day. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) every second an adult got blind and every minute a child suffer the same fate.
The initiative deals mainly with five causes of blindness which include the diseases of cataract representing 60% of the total blindness cases in the Sudan and Trachoma which represent 18% and then comes Onchocerciasis which represent 5%. Then childhood blindness and refractive errors low vision
Though, the Sudan is the largest country in Africa with a population almost reaching 34 million and with a climate ranging from desert in the north to tropical in the south, blindness represent the main public health problem.
Its prevalence is estimated at 1.5% that is 510000 persons, while the prevalence of low vision is estimated at 4.5 % that is 530000 persons
Most of eye disease patients are in rural areas while the ophthalmologists are in big urban areas centers, representing a ratio of one doctor for every 50000 patients in Khartoum and one doctor for every 1000000 in the rest of the Sudan. The Ophthalmic manpower in the Sudan are 120 ophthalmologists 381 assistants, 240 nurses and 820 Optometrists
92 of the Opthalmologists are centered in Khartoum and 28 in the other states of northern Sudan while there is none in the southern states
There are three tertiary hospitals and 16 secondary hospitals
A 5 year national vision 2020 was formulated and adopted by the Federal Ministry of Health in 2002. The main challenges of the plan are represented in realization of decentralization, integration of blindness elimination programmed activity, increase in cataract surgeries to reach 400 million in the year 2008, application of a strategy in all the states, reduction of Trachoma by less than 5%, all basic school children should be screened regularly and corrected for refractive errors and finally functioning referral systems.
The economic loss due to blindness in the Sudan is estimated at 1.5 million US dollars /day and 550 US dollars /year and that equals the revenues of oil
Meanwhile the annual cost of public blindness eliminating programme is one million USdollars
Achievements within the plan programme is that 36400 cataract operations were carried over in 2004, 80% of the operations with iol. An outcome assessment( audit) were practiced in hospitals and out reach activities
Trachoma used to be the main cause of blindness in many areas of the Sudan until the seventies when a successful programme of national Trachoma control was launched and its task force was supported by carter center. The other main eye diseases are the Onchocereciasis (river blindness) which is an endemic in some parts of the states of Bahr Alghzal, equatoria, Darfur, eastern Sudan and in Abuhamad in Northern Sudan
Many programs are working in this field such as the National Onchocercissis Task Force (NOTF) and there is another programme to distribute the Ivermictin drug for treatment of this disease, all these programes are supported by carter center too
There is also the Retractive errors and low vision, but no population based data about the pattern of the disease is available in Sudan, but about 1200 basic school teachers are trained to screen retractive errors – also one doctor one refractionist were trained in Hong Kong, meanwhile, lions club international supports the low vision services. In regard to Childhood blindness, the cases are estimated at 12 in every 1000 children, its main causes are congenital cataract, glaucoma and corneal opacity. There is no programme for screening this kind of blindness but lion’s club international supports the establishment of a tertiary pediatric eye center to provide services and training for the working cadres.