CHILDHOOD BLINDNESS 339 puri community are due to geographic, environmental, or cultural factors. TABLE 8-19. PREVALENCE, ESTIMATED NUMBER OF CASES, AND DISTRIBUTION BY MOTHER TONGUE, ACTIVE XEROPHTHALMIA (AND BITOT'S SPOTS), CHILDREN UNDER AGE 6, DECEMBER-APRIL (NBS 1981) Estimated Number of Children Affected Prevalence per 100 Children Percentage of Nepal's Total Mother Tongue Sample N Nepali Maithili Bhojpuri Tamang Abadhi Tharu Magar Rai Limbu Othera Subtotal Missing data 3,340 885 591 333 101 316 224 196 144 1,071 7,201 379 4,136 (2,293) 8,412 (6,936) 3,468 (2,072) 722 (372) 332 (332) 0.4 (0.2) 2.7 (2.2) 1.7 (1.0) 0.6 (0.3) 1.0 (1.0) 19.8 (14.8) 40.3 (44.7) 16.6 (13.3) 3.5 (2.4) 1.6 (2.1) 329 (329) 0.3 (0.3) 1.6 (2.1) - (-) - (-) - (-) 679 (679) 2,780 (2,521) 20,858 (15,534) 0 (0) - (-) - (-) 3.3 (4.4) 13.3 (16.2) 100.0 (100.0) NA (NA) - (-) 1.4 (1.4) 0.7 (0.6) 0.9 (0.6) NA(NA) 20,858 (15,534) 0.9 (0.6) 100.0 (100.0) Total 7,580 Source: FR8.002 AN.95, 111 M Note: Figures in parentheses refer to the estimated number of cases, prevalence, and distribution of cases of active xerophthalmia that are Bitot's spots (XlB) aOther includes Newari, Gurung, Bhothe Sherpa, and Satar lan- guage groups. (4) Ethnic Group: In Nepal, ethnic groups are complicated com- binations of religious, geographic,· racial, linguistic, and caste characteristics, and over 70 ethnic groups are found throughout the country. With so many ethnic groups, the number of individuals in each group examined in the Nepal Blindness Survey was usually too small to yield reliable data. However, as seen in Table 8-20, the Brahmin and Chetri communities have fairly large sample sizes. The Brahmin community has a prevalence rate for xerophthalmia only one- fifth that of the Chetri community. The Chetri community, because of its modest xerophthalmia prevalence rate but large population size, contains 9.4 percent of the active xeropthalmia and 6.6 percent of the Bitot's spots in the country. The largest share of Bitot's spots comes from three rather small communities: Gwala (1.9 percent prevalence, accounting for 13.2 percent of the
