Dr. Ajit Kumar Poddar,P08506,Dr. Tanwir Ahmed Khan, Dr. Kumari Sweta
Purpose: To estimate the prevalence and causes of avoidable blindness, by using the validated RAAB methodology. No recent evidence based such study is available from rural Bihar.
METHODS: We conducted house hold survey from January to March 2016 in randomly selected Siwan district. 57 clusters were identified by stratified cluster random sampling and examined 60 individuals per cluster aged≥50. We recorded the visual acuity in all and performed detailed examination on patients having visual acuity ≤6/18.
RESULTS: We enumerated 3476 and examined 3189 individuals (92% response rate). The overall prevalence of blindness was found to be 2.2 % (95%CI: 1.6- 2.8) which is unusually high. Untreated cataract was the leading cause of blindness (73%) .
CONCLUSION: Untreated cataract remains a major cause of avoidable blindness . Focused community outreach services targeting the rural regions are required to address the huge backlog of cataract in Bihar.