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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...

Collaborating across the Caribbean to tackle diabetic retinopathy

The VISION 2020 LINKS Programme has been running since 2004, with a focus on improving the quality and quantity of eye care training in low-income countries [1]. In 2014, the Diabetic Retinopathy Network (DR-NET) was established [2]. This is a...

Cementing a VISION 2020 LINK partnership between Blantyre and Liverpool – building capacity for DR services alongside research

Malawi is a small land-locked country in eastern Africa with a growing population of over 17 million people. About 45% of the population is aged 14 or under; only 5% are aged 60 or over. The gross national income per...

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...

Fight for Sight to maximise impact by funding solutions-focused research in priority eye conditions

Fight for Sight aims to stop sight loss by funding pioneering research. Rod McNeil takes a look at the Primer Fellowship Awards programme, which provides funding for up to £60,000 for individuals to undertake vision-related research for one year. Among...

What’s new in wet AMD papers?

Paper presentations on neovascular (‘wet’) age-related macular degeneration (AMD) from the 16th European Society of Retina Specialists Congress, Copenhagen, September 2016, outline recent research directions evaluating the impact of vision loss on key health domains, patient preferences in the process...

Intravitreal injections delivered by ophthalmic clinical nurse specialists

Intravitreal injections of the anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (anti-VEGF) agent ranibizumab, for the treatment of wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD) was approved by National Institute for Health & Care Excellence (NICE) in 2008 [1]. The Manchester Royal Eye Hospital (MREH),...

ChatGPT cannot pass FRCOphth examinations: implications for ophthalmology and large language model artificial intelligence

Large language models are generating a lot of hype for artificial intelligence, but can they assist patients and practitioners in ophthalmology? Introduction Deep learning (DL) has emerged in ophthalmology as an exciting form of artificial intelligence (AI) most commonly applied...

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)...

Eyecare education in times of COVID-19

A collaboration between the German Committee for the Prevention of Blindness (DKVB), Rukwa regional government in Tanzania and the University of St Andrews Global Health Team successfully delivered a hybrid teaching programme for ophthalmic nurses in Sumbawanga, south west Tanzania,...

Observership in Dar es Salaam

In this report, both authors present their personal experiences of an observership at the Comprehensive Community Based Rehabilitation in Tanzania (CCBRT) Hospital, a large regional teaching hospital located in Dar es Salaam, with a particular focus on resource management, attitudes...

Broadening of treatment options for potentially blinding retinal conditions

Rod McNeil provides an update on a promising bispecific antibody recently approved for treatment of neovascular age-related macular degeneration (nAMD) and diabetic macular oedema (DMO) and considers emerging developments in biosimilars to established anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (anti-VEGF) therapies, including...