Avoidable blindness - Essay Example

Avoidable Blindness Introduction This article is written to estimate the prevalence of blindness associated with diabetes in Taif District, Saudi Arabia. The survey done in this study was the first population-based study of the visually impaired in Saudi Arabia in 20 Years. Prevalence of Blindness Associated with Diabetes in Taif District, Saudi ArabiaAl Ghamdi et. al. (2012), studied 3300 people whose age was over 50 years in Taif District, Saudi Arabia. Among the people studied, posterior segment diseases (44%) and Cataract (41%) were the leading causes of blindness.

The prevalence of diabetes in the population was 29.7%. Of the people confirmed to have diabetes, 80% of them had been diagnosed with diabetes previously. 56% of the people confirmed to have diabetes had poor control. The random blood glucose tested was less then 200mg/dl. The prevalence of any DR was 34.6%. However, what stood noticeably was the high level of sight threatening diabetes retinopathy of 17.5%. This was mostly due to high levels of referable maculopathy at (15.9%) and may be related to the high number of individuals found to have poor glycaemic control.

The prevalence of blindness (presenting VA