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Childhood monocular blindness in rural India may be largely preventable, treatable
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There is a high prevalence of childhood monocular blindness in rural India, but the causes are generally treatable or preventable, according to a study.
“Improved primary care with appropriate prevention measures, genetic counseling, early identification, and therapeutic interventions can reduce the burden of childhood blindness,” the study authors said.
The cross-sectional study included 14,423 children younger than 15 years from randomly selected rural villages in southern India. The first stage of screening included children with visual acuity worse than 6/18 in at least one eye. In the second stage, children with visual acuity worse than 3/60 in at least one eye were referred to a tertiary care center to determine the cause of visual impairment.
Fifteen children, a prevalence rate of 1.13 per 1,000, were found to be monocularly blind. The impairment was caused by amblyopia in six children, trauma in three, congenital globe anomaly in three, vitamin A deficiency in two and toxoplasmosis in one.
The researchers found that nearly one-third (30.06%) of the children with monocular blindness were born of consanguineous parents, with 46.4% of the consanguinity being first-degree.
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