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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...

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,...

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...

Advanced Glaucoma Surgery Course in Africa through the Juba-Bournemouth VISION 2020 LINK

In order to enhance specialist skills, particularly for South Sudan, the Juba-Bournemouth VISION 2020 LINK has been offering week-long intensive ophthalmic specialist training for the last three years, in collaboration with the University of Nairobi, the College of Ophthalmology of...

Capacity building for ophthalmic nursing in Ghana, Botswana and Tanzania

Ophthalmic nurses (ON) have been the backbone of eye health services in Africa since the mid-20th century and remain the largest single cadre of allied ophthalmic personnel in Commonwealth countries in Africa. Numbers are currently estimated at between 3500 and...

Diabetic Retinopathy Network laser training programme

The VISION 2020 Diabetic Retinopathy Network (DR-NET) was established in 2014 to tackle the increasing burden of diabetes and diabetic retinopathy (DR) in developing countries [1]. By forming a network of long-term LINK capacity-building partnerships, learning and best practice can...

IN FOCUS - The achievements and lasting effects of VISION 2020

Blindness is a major public health problem globally. The first estimate of global blindness by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 1972 provided a figure of 10 to 15 million, which was considered an underestimate [1]. In 1999, an extraordinary...

Reflections on a twelve-year partnership: The Makassar-Dundee LINK

In the first article of a two-part series (see Part 2 here), the authors provide an overview of this hugely successful partnership and how they overcame the challenges of COVID-19. What began in 2008 as a connection between equals, has...

Establishing an intra-arterial chemotherapy service for children with retinoblastoma in Nigeria for the first time

This is the first in a series of three articles (see Part 2 here) about strengthening eye health services in Nigeria through collaboration with the LINKS and Networks run at the International Centre for Eye Health, London School of Hygiene...

Back-to-back congresses in Africa highlight international collaboration to advance eye health

The ISOO Africa 2023 Congress The first International Society of Ocular Oncology (ISOO) [1] conference to be held in Africa took place in Mombasa, Kenya, from 21-23 August 2023. Participants came from all over Africa, as well as the US,...

Primary eye health care in low- and middle-income countries

The need for eyecare services in low- and middle-income countries Recent global estimates (2020) suggest that there is more than a three-fold difference in the prevalence of all categories of visual loss (presenting visual acuity <6/12 in the better eye)...

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...