Ocular Health Status of School Children in a Resource-Limited Society : The Burden of Avoidable Childhood Eye Conditions

Many ocular problems that are amenable to interventional measures can be detected through vision screening of selected population such as school children. A cross-sectional study of sampled 1,393 children from 10 primary schools between July 2005 and January 2006 in Ilorin, Nigeria, was conducted to determine the pupils' ocular health status. The pupils comprised of 689 males, mean age 10.16 years + 2.5. The prevalence of ocular pathology was 19.9%. Observed ocular disorders were refractive errors, 6.9%, vernal conjunctivitis, 6.7%, genetic / congenital / developmental ocular disorders 39 (2.8%), glaucoma / glaucoma suspect 20 (1.4%), ocular infections 18 (1.3%), and ocular trauma 11 (0.8%). The avoidable causes of visual impairment/ blindness constituted 86.7%. The sheer magnitude of avoidable causes of visual impairment and blindness among the pupils underscores the importance of study such as this and the need to have an effective school eye health programme in resource-challenged communities.