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Preventing blindness from diabetes: planning a programme of service development and research across Malawi

In sub-Saharan Africa 19.4 million people have diabetes; this is projected to rise to 28.6 million by 2030 [1]. Sight loss from diabetes devastates the lives of working people, affecting the financial stability of the families and communities who depend...

Could the sclera be key to glaucoma?

The glaucomas are a group of conditions characterised by optic neuropathy and associated visual field defects. Of these, chronic open-angle glaucoma (COAG) – diagnosed on the basis of progressive structural changes to the optic nerve head (ONH) and nerve fibre...

Building Capacity for Children’s Eye Care in Africa: the VISION 2020 LINKS Programme

This article follows the Correspondent News articles in the previous five print issues of Eye News [1-5] on the VISION 2020 LINKS Programme [6]. This article describes how African and UK eye care teams are working together to tackle childhood...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...