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COVID-19 and the eye: a review of ocular involvement and protective strategies

A lot of attention has been placed on the use of face coverings to limit COVID-19 transmission, but there has been less focus on ocular involvement and ocular protection strategies. The author reviews the literature and discusses possible solutions. The...

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...

The International Centre for Eye Health: weaving the global threads together

The VISION 2020 LINKS & Networks Programme has been writing regular articles in Eye News about its capacity-strengthening activities in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) for more than a decade. This, the first International Issue, is a landmark for Eye...

Launch of the Diabetic Retinopathy Screening Service in UHWI Jamaica

At 2.55pm on Wednesday 16 March 2016 the first patient was screened and given her results in the new nurse-led Diabetic Retinopathy Screening (DRS) Clinic at the University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI), Kingston, Jamaica. This was the result...

VISION 2020 LINKS: Retinoblastoma 
in Africa

The VISION 2020 LINKS Programme is part of the ‘VISION 2020: The Right to Sight’ global initiative to eliminate avoidable blindness [1]. The LINKS Programme works with overseas eye departments to help identify priorities and match their priority needs with...

How the development of Glaucoma Guidelines, Glaucoma Toolkit and GLASS training and the Glaucoma nurse training can effect change in Nigeria

In July 2024, a combined training, led by Fatima Kyari, was run in Abuja, Nigeria to facilitate a multifaceted upskilling in glaucoma management. The first week comprised of inviting 36 doctors practising glaucoma from around Nigeria’s 36 states, including the...

Eyecare education in times of COVID-19

A collaboration between the German Committee for the Prevention of Blindness (DKVB), Rukwa regional government in Tanzania and the University of St Andrews Global Health Team successfully delivered a hybrid teaching programme for ophthalmic nurses in Sumbawanga, south west Tanzania,...

Sustainability in eyecare: Intraocular gases and the climate emergency

In 2020 the NHS became the first national health system to commit to delivering ‘net zero’ carbon emissions by 2040. The author investigates how the impact of ophthalmic surgery can be reduced. Medical gases have been used in ophthalmic surgery...

Spotlight: The Community Eye Health Journal

In many low-income settings, where vision loss is greatest, eyecare is hampered by shortages in trained health workers. In sub-Saharan Africa, there are fewer than five ophthalmologists per million population, compared to over 70 per million in high-income countries. Eyecare...

Retinoblastoma – the challenges of a rare cancer and the role of international partnerships

Introduction: the global challenge The global burden of retinoblastoma (Rb) is one in 15,000-18,000 live births, which equates to 8000 new cases worldwide each year. The global disparities in Rb outcome represent a paradigm of health inequality worldwide [1]. In...

Maximising the ocular surface prior to cataract surgery: The old and the new modalities of treatment

Cataract surgery is among the most commonly performed surgical procedures worldwide. Over time, it has evolved from a lens-extraction procedure into a refractive intervention that demands meticulous perioperative planning and precision to achieve optimal outcomes. Optimisation of the ocular surface...