The Right to see, Mmegi has established. Vision 2020 is a global health initiative partnership between the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the International Agency for Prevention of Blindness (IAPB) to prevent avoidable blindness by the year 2020.Discussions at a Ministry of Health workshop for Ophthalmic Professionals in Gaborone yesterday revealed that Botswana is floundering in her efforts to deal with and manage glaucoma, the top common cause of irreversible blindness in the world. Glaucoma, a group of diseases that can damage the eye's optic nerve and result in blindness or vision loss, is also the second most common cause of blindness in the world, after cataracts.
Alice Lehasa, coordinator of the National Prevention of Blindness unit called glaucoma "one of the greatest challenges in preventive ophthalmology." Although, according to Lehasa, almost half of all glaucoma cases go undetected even in developed countries, in Botswana management of the disease is even more difficult because of the dire shortage of person. There are currently only four ophthalmologists in the country, three based at Serowe's Sekgoma Memorial Hospital and one at Princess Marina Hospital. Only two more students have currently been sent for training in the field.
