Humanitarian
Increasing access to eye care through community outreach clinics in Uganda
There has been a VISION 2020 LINK between Mulago Hospital and Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda and the Royal Free Hospital, London, since 2010. There have been regular training visits between teams from the eye departments at Mulago and the...
VISION 2020 LINKS: COECSA Fellowship examination goes from strength to strength
Eye health problems and access to diagnosis and treatment is an important issue throughout low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), and particularly on the African continent, where quality of life is drastically affected by poor vision, blindness and deteriorating eye health,...
Diabetic retinopathy screening in Belize: a country’s journey towards reducing blindness from DR
The rise of diabetes mellitus (DM) and its complications is a public health concern in the Caribbean. The Caribbean Diabetic Retinopathy (DR) Programme, managed by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and funded by the Queen Elizabeth...
Paediatric ophthalmology training in Africa through the Juba-Bournemouth VISION 2020 LINK
One of the aims of the College of Ophthalmology of Eastern, Central and Southern Africa (COECSA) is to provide specialist ophthalmic training for practising ophthalmologists from its 11 member countries. A number of initiatives are enabling more ophthalmologists to undertake...
Sustainable prevention of blindness from diabetic retinopathy through prevention and control of diabetes mellitus – LINK partnership experience in Dominica
The Caribbean Diabetic Retinopathy Project (DR Caribbean) is a five-year project that aims to reduce blindness due to diabetic retinopathy (DR) across four Commonwealth countries: Belize, Dominica, Jamaica and St Lucia. The VISION 2020 LINKS Programme at the London School...
Strengthening capacity for ophthalmic research within three East African VISION 2020 LINKS – The Research Mentorship Workshop
Building capacity for ophthalmic research in low- and middle-income countries is an important aim of the VISION 2020 LINKS Programme. The International Centre for Eye Health (ICEH) at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) has been working...
Diabetes and diabetic retinopathy: Changes in understanding of the disease over the last 25 years and how the UK is helping low-income countries tackle the challenges
Diabetes – a historical perspective Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a chronic disease caused by inherited and / or acquired deficiency in production of insulin by the pancreas, or by the ineffectiveness of the insulin produced. Such a deficiency results in...
Rb-NET: a network to save life and preserve vision in children in Africa
Responding to need is a key element underpinning the VISION 2020 LINKS Programme [1]. It is embedded in the process through which LINKS are established, with institutions in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) first defining their priority areas of training...
Volunteer abroad: the Khmer Sight Foundation
A team of volunteers describe their experiences of working with the Khmer Sight Foundation in Cambodia. Cambodia has a population of 15 million people, of whom an estimated 300,000 are blind. This figure is increasing by 10,000 each year. Three-quarters...
Collaborating across the Caribbean to tackle diabetic retinopathy
The VISION 2020 LINKS Programme has been running since 2004, with a focus on improving the quality and quantity of eye care training in low-income countries [1]. In 2014, the Diabetic Retinopathy Network (DR-NET) was established [2]. This is a...
South-South collaboration for the treatment of avoidable blindness in Botswana
This article describes the value of South-South collaboration in the reduction of avoidable blindness. Specifically it describes a South-South collaboration between India and Botswana that evolved out of the VISION 2020 LINK between Cambridge University Hospitals, two institutions in India...
Building research capacity through the VISION 2020 LINKS Programme
The aim is to build capacity for research in the region covered by the College of Ophthalmology of Eastern, Central and Southern Africa (COECSA). The project will build research capacity in three ophthalmology training institutions by ‘training the trainers’ and...
