Childhood blindness in Jamaica

Childhood blindness results in a lifetime of morbidity for the child and family involved, requiring special schooling with limited employment opportunities. The identification of the causes of blindness in children and their prevention, where possible, is of vital importance. We look at the causes of blindness in Jamaica. The leading preventable cause was congenital rubella syndrome, which often results in multiple handicap. This condition should be avoidable with a suitable immunisation programme. The leading treatable causes were congenital cataract and glucoma. These conditions may both be treatable if surgery is performed at an early age and specialist care is maintained.(AU)

Diabetic maculopathy in a Jamaican population

Maculopathy is the commonest cause of severe visual loss diabetic retinopathy in Jamaica [5]. Ophthalmic assessment of 158 black Jamaican maturity onset diabetics referred randomly from the primary and secondary health centres, demonstrated maculopathy in 48 percent of patients. Duration of diabetes was a strong risk factor for maculopathy (p less than 0.0010). Poor compliance with diabetic and hypertensive therapy may infleunce the prevalence of maculopathy (AU)

Sickle cell retinopathy in Jamaican children: further observations from a cohort study

Serial retinal examinations were performed in children aged 5 years and older and fluorescein angiography/angioscopy in children 6 years and older participating in a cohort study of sickle cell disease. There were 1229 patient years of observation among 389 children aged 5 - 13 years. Peripheral retinal vessel closure was present in approximately 50 percent of children with SS and SC genotypes at age 6 years and increased to affect 90 percent of children by age 12 years. A matched pair analysis, comparing groups with minimal and complete closure, indicated that complete closure was associated with significantly lower total haemoglobin and fetal haemoglobin levels and significantly lower weight in SS disease, whereas in SC disease the risk factors appeared to be high mean cell volume and low platelet count. Proliferative retinopathy was rare, occurring only once in an 8-year-old boy with SC disease, despite 592 patient years of observation in children over this age. (AU)

Childhood blindness in Jamaica

Examinations were performed on the 108 blind Jamaican children (VA less than 6/60 in the better eye) in residential care. The congenital rubella syndrome (CRS) was the leading preventable cause of childhood blindness, accounting for 22 percent of children examined. Improvement of the surgical procedures constitute recent attempts to combat childhood blindness. (AU)

Electrical injury and cataracts: an unusual case

A 24 year-old male Jamaican building worker developed cataracts four months after electrical injury from a high tension cable. His visual acuity fell to perception of hand movements at 1 metre. Extracapsular cataract extraction and intraocular lens implantation restored his visual acuity to 20/25 (6/7.5). Mechanisms for this unusual complication of electrical injury are discussed (AU)

Diabetic retinopathy and visual loss in a Jamaican population

Opthalmic assessment was performed on a random sample of 178 black Jamaican diabetics. Retinopathy was present in 69 percent. Severe visual loss (V.A.<5/200or