Eye diseases and blindness in Adjumani refugee settlement camps, Uganda.

OBJECTIVES

To determine the prevalence and causes of the blindness and ocular morbidity amongst Sudanese refugees; to prioritise and provide eye care services to the refugees and; to device administrative strategies and logistics of prevention and control of blinding diseases among the refugees.

DESIGN

A mobile outreach clinic study for six weeks.

SETTING

Adjumani settlement camps for Sudanese refugees in Uganda.

PARTICIPANTS

Seven hundred patients in eighteen settlement camps.

INTERVENTIONS: Medical treatment and surgical correction offered.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Cataract, trachoma and xerophthalmia are the major causes of blindness.

RESULTS

One hundred and forty six patients (21%) were bilaterally blind, and 77 patients (11%) were unilaterally blind. The three leading causes of blindness are cataract (42%), xerophthalmia (28%) and trachoma (21%). Glaucoma and other non-specified causes were responsible for the remaining blindness (9%). The crude prevalence of blindness among the 700 patients was 20. This is an extremely high prevalence, nearly ten times higher than for Ugandans living in Uganda.

CONCLUSION

In refugee settlement camps setting, residents may have a much higher prevalence of eye diseases and blindness than non-refugees.