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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...

General purpose AI: Transitioning from high performance in highly curated settings to useful applications in ophthalmology

Artificial intelligence (AI) may be understood as the ability of machines to perform tasks which otherwise require human perception, reasoning, or learning. With the advent of deep learning, AI has achieved remarkable results across a wide range of medical tasks...

Retinopathy of prematurity treatment in the South West of England: long-term outcomes 1997-2008

Retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) is a condition that affects the developing retinal vascular system of pre-term babies. If left untreated, ROP can lead to severe visual impairment. The severe visual impairment caused by untreated ROP can be prevented by screening...

VISION 2020 LINKS Programme: the Madagascar-Leeds LINK

Madagascar is a fascinating and culturally rich island which has an ‘exotic’ status in most people’s eyes. Yet it is among the poorest countries in the world. According to the World Bank, 92% of the population live on less than...

Clinical relevance of the anatomic classification of neovascular age-related macular degeneration

The author explains why an OCT-based classification of neovascular AMD is needed and how these neovascular subtypes may help to predict patients’ long-term visual outcome. Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a chronic and progressive neurodegenerative process involving the macula in...

Surgical treatment of high myopia

Although several excellent modalities are available for correcting high myopia, the surgical treatment of this condition remains one of the biggest challenges for refractive surgeons; this group of patients is often very dependent on contact lenses. If these patients become...

VISION 2020 LINKS Programme: Reviewing the first ten years and announcing the new diabetic retinopathy initiative

The VISION 2020 LINKS Programme celebrates its 10th anniversary next month. Over the past decade it has achieved its objective of building capacity for eye care in developing countries, particularly in Africa, by establishing long-term training partnerships between institutions, known...

Urban Changes and Rural Struggles for Ophthalmology in China

China is by far the most populated country in the world, with over 1.3 billion inhabitants. It is also the country with the highest number of blind and visually impaired people. As a developing country, half of China’s population lives...

Optical coherence tomography – reinventing the eye examination

It has been 25 years since Huang et al. presented the first optical coherence tomography (OCT) images in Science [1]. With vast improvements in OCT technology over the years, it is now possible to acquire high-resolution cross-sectional images of 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...