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What a fantastic way to start the year! With The Fred Hollows Foundation, Brien Holden Vision Institute, Seva Foundation, Helen Keller International and Sightsavers at the helm, the group provides an important forum for raising awareness, sharing ideas and disseminating evidence on gender equity approaches.
Consultation on the draft World report on vision took place and ran through until March 2018. The purpose of the consultation was to seek constructive feedback to improve the quality of the report. To find out the latest on the World Report on Vision click here.
IAPB welcomed our new CEO Peter Holland, who has also worked in the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the National Health Service (NHS) and the Royal National Institute of the Blind (RNIB) gathering a wide range of experience in building impactful partnerships, delivering complex projects and developing and implementing strategy.
Two new major commitments towards universal eye health by Essilor International and the UK government were announced as The Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust and the City of London Corporation held a special event to mark efforts undertaken by Commonwealth nations to bring vision to everyone, everywhere.
The Fred Hollows Foundation will help drive the final global push to eliminate trachoma, the world’s leading infectious cause of blindness, thanks to a £20 million commitment from the UK government. The funding could protect the sight of millions of people by eliminating trachoma in 10 Commonwealth countries by 2020.
The IAPB School Eye Health Workgroup released the “Standard Guidelines for Comprehensive School Eye Health programmes”. These school eye health guidelines are helping to deliver standardised comprehensive eye health services to more than 700 million children attending schools around the world.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has validated Nepal for eliminating trachoma as a public health problem–the first South East Asian country to have achieved this success.
12thMay 2018 was International Nurses Day – IAPB members came together to shine a light on the fantastic work that ophthalmic nurses do. With the help of many IAPB members we also presented a number of blogposts and stories from nurses working in the field, that captured the amazing relationships nurses have with both the patient and eye care team.
Ghana, where Sightsavers and partners run programmes in support of the Ministry of Health, is the first country in sub-Saharan Africa to be verified by WHO as having eliminated trachoma as a public health problem.
All across China our members and friends took part in activities to ensure that child-centred activities promoting eye health are a reality.
The WHO Regional Office for Africa launched a training manual entitled “Primary Eye Care Training Manual – A course to strengthen the capacity of health personnel to manage eye patients at primary-level health facilities in the African Region”. IAPB ran a webinar on the manual!
IAPB signed up to the Summit’s political declaration the “Charter for Change“. Additionally, for its part, IAPB has commited to aligning to the new Global Partnership on Assistive Technology. IAPB will continue to build on its work with WHO’s GATE, and other channels to increase access to vision-related assistive devices.
The IAPB Council of Members 2018 was a new and exciting opportunity for members to meet, take part in member-led sessions and to connect with new partners. We’d like to thank the teams at L V Prasad Eye Institute for co-hosting the Council of Members and Committee, work group and Board meetings.
Standard Chartered announced that it has reached the goal it set in 2011 to raise USD100 million for the fight against avoidable blindness and visual impairment. The goal has been reached two years ahead of the Bank’s 2020 target date.
World Sight Day is the most important advocacy and communications event on the eye health calendar. It is a great time to engage with the world around us – a patient’s family, those who seldom get an eye exam, diabetics. This years theme was Eye Care Everywhere!
The IAPB Board of Trustees agreed to a new 3-year plan for the Secretariat. It sets out four key priorities for the next three years: Global Advocacy, Connecting Knowledge, Strengthening the Network and Providing Services, with a focus on how the Secretariat will support members to tackle the challenges we face in the next three years and achieve our shared goals.
Leading philanthropists have set up a $105 million fund to help eliminate blinding eye disease trachoma. The funding was announced by Richard Branson via recorded video link at the Global Citizen concert in Johannesburg on 2 December 2018.
Vanuatu has been validated by the World Health Organization (WHO) for eliminating trachoma as a public health problem.
