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South-South collaboration for the treatment of avoidable blindness in Botswana

This article describes the value of South-South collaboration in the reduction of avoidable blindness. Specifically it describes a South-South collaboration between India and Botswana that evolved out of the VISION 2020 LINK between Cambridge University Hospitals, two institutions in India...

Students, soccer and slit-lamps in Ethiopia: a VISION 2020 LINK

Wachemo University campus. The Ethiopian Government is well aware of the brain drain amongst health workers and, to compensate, is training huge numbers of medical students, nurses and health officers in universities like Wachemo, a massive new University near Hosanna...

Development of retinoblastoma services in Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe recognised the need for a paediatric ophthalmology service almost 20 years ago. The economic uncertainty in the country made it difficult to secure financial support, so initial funding came through local donors. Equipment – including vision charts, ophthalmoscopes and...

Impact of Eye Health Surveys and Partnerships in The Gambia

This article brings together the three national eye health surveys that have been undertaken in The Gambia between 1986 and 2019 and the impact that the results have had nationally and internationally. In it we describe the long-term capacity-strengthening for...

Implementing technology to improve global eye health

Technological innovation is providing new solutions to transform global eye health [1–5]. In particular, research towards the development of artificial intelligence (AI) tools in ophthalmology has gained pace in recent years. However, there has been little research relating to its...

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...

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...

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...