%0 Journal Article %A Yuddha Sapkota %A Najeebullah Alizoi %A Abdul Majeed Siddiqi %A Mohammad Naseem %A Ahmad Shah Salaam %A Atiq ur Rehman %A Fabrizio D'Esposito %A Taraprasad Das %T Rapid assessment of prevalence of blindness and cataract surgery in Kabul province, Afghanistan %D 2021 %R 10.1136/bmjophth-2021-000790 %J BMJ Open Ophthalmology %P e000790 %V 6 %N 1 %X Objective To estimate prevalence and causes of blindness and vision impairment and assess cataract surgical coverage and quality of cataract surgery in Kabul.Methods and analysis A total of 3751 adults aged 50 years and above were recruited from 77 randomly selected clusters. Each participant underwent presenting and pinhole visual acuity assessment and lens examination. Those with pinhole visual acuity <6/12 in either eye had a dilated fundus examination to determine the cause of reduced vision. Those with apparent lens opacity were interviewed on barriers to cataract surgery.Results The age-adjusted and sex-adjusted prevalence of blindness was 2.4% (95% CI: 1.8% to 3.0%). Prevalence of severe, moderate and mild vision impairment was 2.2% (95% CI: 1.7% to 2.7%), 6.9% (95% CI: 6.0% to 7.9%) and 8.7% (95% CI: 7.5% to 9.8%), respectively. Cataract was the main cause of blindness (36.8%), severe (54.4%) and moderate (46.1%) vision impairment. Uncorrected refractive error was the leading cause of mild vision impairment (20.3%). Age-related macular degeneration was the second leading cause of blindness (23.0%). In people with a presenting visual acuity of <3/60, cataract surgical coverage was 89.7%, and effective cataract surgical coverage was 67.8%. The major barriers to uptake of the available cataract surgical services were the need for surgery was not felt (23.7%) and cost (22.0%).Conclusion Kabul province has a high prevalence of blindness, largely due to cataract and age-related macular generation. The quality of cataract surgery is also lagging in terms of good visual outcomes. This calls for immediate efforts to improving the reach and quality of existing eye services and readiness to respond to the increasing burden of posterior eye disease.Data are available upon reasonable request. data are stored in RAAB repository, available in reasonable request. https://raabdata.info/repository. %U https://bmjophth.bmj.com/content/bmjophth/6/1/e000790.full.pdf