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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...

Strengthening eye care services in Botswana through the Botswana-Addenbrooke’s Abroad VISION 2020 LINK

The VISION 2020 LINK between Botswana and Addenbrooke’s Abroad has been running for 10 years. With support from the VISION 2020 LINKS Programme two-way exchange visits were undertaken leading to the formation of the first formal international partnership under Addenbrooke’s...

The Diabetic Eye Screening Programme in Tanzania - The VISION 2020 LINK between Dodoma and Belfast

Rahila Bashir, Senior Remote Ophthalmic Research Image Grader, talks to Frank Sandi, Ophthalmologist at the Benjamin Mkapa Hospital (BMH), University of Dodoma in Tanzania and to Tunde Peto at Queen’s University Belfast (QUB) and Belfast Health and Social Care Trust...

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...

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...

The invisible touch: a VISION 2020 LINK with Indonesia

Indonesia’s population, the world’s fourth largest, is spread across 6,000 inhabited islands. Whilst some areas (e.g. Kalimantan, Papua) are relatively sparsely populated, Java is the world’s most densely populated island, with twice the population of the UK in half the...

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...

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...

The VISION 2020 LINKS Programme: Cascading leadership training in Calabar, Nigeria

The VISION 2020 LINKS Programme has initiated ‘LEAD FORWARD’, an innovative leadership development project incorporating a commitment to cascade training and participate in achievable quality or service improvement projects. The project provides opportunities to apply leadership skills in practice as...

Building leaders for eye care in Africa: the COECSA-RCOphth VISION 2020 LINK

The VISION 2020 LINK [1] between the College of Ophthalmology of Eastern, Central and Southern Africa (COECSA) and the Royal College of Ophthalmologists (RCOphth) has been building leaders of eye care in Africa since 2008, when a Memorandum of Understanding...

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,...

VISION 2020 LINKS Programme and DR-NET World Sight Day Workshop

World Sight Day (WSD) was celebrated globally on 8 October 2020 [1]. From Australia and the Pacific to the Americas, via Asia, Africa and the Caribbean, awareness-raising and advocacy activities took place throughout the day, to focus attention on unnecessary...