Abstract

During a countrywide survey we assessed the prevalence of climatic droplet keratopathy (CDK) in a randomised sample of 2446 subjects representative of the population of the Republic of Djibouti. The investigation of the relationship between CDK and two diseases considered to be related to exposure to ultra-violet light--namely, exfoliation syndrome and cataract--was planned as a case control study. In the rural area prevalence of CDK was five times higher than in the urban one (2.8% vs 0.5%) and varied according to districts. The highest rates were observed where the inhabitants' activities were related to the sea. The case control study revealed that the opacification of the lens was about three times commoner in patients with CDK than in patients without CDK (p = 0.03) and that the exfoliation syndrome was about six times commoner in patients with CDK than in controls of similar age, sex, climatic conditions, and lens status (p = 0.02). Moreover, we noticed that the sequelae of corneal perforations were about 30 times commoner in patients with CDK than in controls of similar age (p less than 0.00001).