Emergency medical care is essential in preventing morbidity and mortality, especially when interventions are time-sensitive and require immediate access to supplies and trained personnel.

To assess the treatment rates of eye emergencies in Africa. Ocular emergencies are particularly delicate due to the eye’s intricate structure and the necessity for its refractive components to remain transparent.

This review examines the low treatment rates of eye emergencies in Africa, drawing on 96 records extracted from the PubMed database using predetermined search criteria.

The epidemiology of ocular injuries, as detailed in the studies, reveals significant relationships between the incidence and prevalence of eye injuries and factors such as age, gender, and occupation. The causes of eye emergencies range from accidents to gender-based violence and insect or animal attacks. Management approaches reported in the review include both surgical and non-surgical interventions, from medication to evisceration or enucleation of the eye. Preventive measures emphasize eye health education and the use of protective eyewear and facial protection. However, inadequate healthcare infrastructure and personnel, cultural and geographical barriers, and socioeconomic and behavioral factors hinder the effective prevention, service uptake, and management of eye emergencies.

The authors recommend developing eye health policies, enhancing community engagement, improving healthcare personnel training and retention, and increasing funding for eye care programs as solutions to address the low treatment rate of eye emergencies in Africa.

• Eye emergency
• Ocular injury
• Epidemiology
• Treatment
• Africa

• Ethiopia
• Harar town
• injury
• occupational injury
• small-scale industry
• work place

• Humans
• Ethiopia/epidemiology
• Cross-Sectional Studies
• Adult
• Male
• Female
• Occupational Injuries/epidemiology
• Prevalence
• Middle Aged
• Surveys and Questionnaires
• Risk Factors
• Industry/statistics & numerical data
• Young Adult

• Cross Sectional Study
• Epidemiology
• Equipment
• Public Health

In this work, we carried out a cross-sectional study to assess occupational ocular injuries and utilization of eye protective devices among sawmill workers in the Ojo local government area of Lagos State, Nigeria A structured questionnaire was used to conduct face-to-face interviews among the sawmill workers. Pearson’s chi-squared test and t-test were used to test associations between variables. A p-value of less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant. A total of 215 sawmill workers with a mean age of 37.08 ± 12.07 years participated in the study. A majority (55.8%) of the participants were male (93.7%), and a majority were 21–40 years old (55.8%). Of the participants, 78.6% were aware of occupational ocular injuries and 17.7% used ocular safety devices. The major barrier to the use of eye protective devices was unavailability (43%). Workers who were ≥20 years old (p < 0.001), who received a monthly salary of less than USD 100 (p < 0.043), who had work experience of ≥10 years (p < 0.04), who were aware of ocular hazards (p < 0.03), and who did not use protective eye devices (p < 0.02) were significantly associated with occupational ocular injuries compared to others. The prevalence of occupational ocular injuries and the utilization of eye safety devices among the sawmill workers in the current study were comparable to findings from other studies. Based on the results of our study, we advise the provision of ocular protective devices for sawmill workers and policies to enforce regular utilization.

• Nigeria
• occupational ocular injuries
• sawmill workers
• utilization of eye protective devices