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Purpose: To determine the prevalence and causes of blindness and visual impairment among adults in Kogi, Nigeria. Methods: A Rapid assessment of avoidable blindness (RAAB) protocol was used with additional tools measuring disability and household wealth to measure the prevalence of blindness and visual impairment (VI) and associations with sex, disability, wealth, cataract surgical coverage and its effectiveness. Results: Age- and sex-adjusted all-cause prevalence of bilateral blindness was 3.6% (95%CI 3.0–4.2%), prevalence of blindness among people living with additional, non-visual disabilities was 38.3% (95% CI 29.0–48.6%) compared to 1.6% (95%CI 1.2–2.1%; χ2 = 771.9, p<0.001) among people without additional disabilities. Cataract was the principal cause of bilateral blindness (55.3%). Cataract surgical coverage (CSC) at visual acuity (VA) 3/60 was 48.0%, higher among men than women (53.7% vs 40.3%); 12.0% among people with non-visual disabilities; 66.9% among people without non-visual disabilities, being higher among people in the wealthiest two quintiles (41.1%) compared to the lowest three (24.3%). Effective Cataract Surgical Coverage at Visual Acuity 6/60 was 31.0%, higher among males (34.9%) than females (25.5%), low among people with additional, non-visual disabilities (1.9%) compared to people with no additional disabilities (46.2%). Effective CDC was higher among people in the wealthiest two quintiles (411%) compared to the poorest three (24.3%). Good surgical outcome (VA>6/18) was seen in 61 eyes (52.6%) increasing to 71 (61.2%) eyes with best correction. Cost was identified as the main barrier to surgery. Conclusion: Findings suggest there exists inequalities in eye care with women, poorer people and people with disabilities having a lower Cataract Surgical Coverage, thereby, underscoring the importance of eye care programs to address these inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Nigeria is one of the developing countries that have the highest challenge of Onchocerciasis and other Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) in Africa. Objectives: This study aims at ascertaining the potency, gap and deficiencies of the media in regards to discharging their social responsibility of creating awareness on river blindness and the media's efforts in the actualization of Vision 2020. Methodology: This research study adopts a documentary research method where the researchers used the Google Scholar to retrieved relevant research journal articles, books, seminar papers and other relevant publications. In order to retrieve relevant materials the following steps were followed identification of keywords, Database Search, Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria, Screening and Selection and lastly Data Extraction and Synthesis. Results: the study found that river blindness (Onchocerciasis) has avalanche of adverse socio-economic effects on the populace of Nigeria. Furthermore, it was also found that media advocacy on Ochocerciasis is dormant and this has the potency to impede the actualization of the World Health Organization's Vision: 2020 in the country. Conclusion: Communicating information on river blindness using only the conventional media is not enough in a society like Nigeria; hence there is the need for a combination of the conventional and other interpersonal channels of communication like the church/mosque, market, traditional institutions, etc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]