Response to: Causes of visual disability among Central Africans with diabetes mellitus

Dear Editor, I read with great interest the article by Mvitu and Longo-Mbenza that appeared in a recent issue of African Heath Sciences.¹ In that paper, the authors were interested in determining whether diabetes is an independent and significant determinant of visual disability. I commend them for performing this study. However a closer look at Figure 1 indicates a steady increase in the rate of visual disability by more than 10% per decade. On the contrary Figure 2 shows that the rate of disability sharply decreases by more than 20% and remains unchanged over time after the disease has lasted 5 years.