The Mozambique Eyecare Programme – a Partnership which Addresses Avoidable Blindness in Lusophone Africa

Abstract

According to the WHO about 831 million people are visually impaired worldwide, 45 million of them are blind. Most people with visual impairment are older, and females are more at risk at every age, in every part of the world. Uncorrected Refractive Error accounts for over half of all visual impairment. About 87% of the worlds visually impaired live in developing countries. The Mozambique Eyecare Programme (MEP) is a cross institutional collaboration between governments, higher education institutions, non-governmental organisations and corporations. The aims of this Programme are to collaborate to provide a sustainable solution to the problem of avoidable blindness in developing nations, by addressing the significant barrier of local human resource capacity development, through optometric education, research capacity strengthening and the enhancement of specialist knowledge for future collaborations. The MEP is an example of how cross institutional collaborations work effectively and efficiently to address uncorrected refractive error as a leading cause of global blindness and vision impairment. Dissemination of lessons learned will inform collaboration with the government and relevant organisations to integrate outcomes into the development of a National Eyecare Plan in Mozambique and other countries.