Wednesday, March 12, 2014

LVPEI part of Commonwealth Eye Health Consortium

L V Prasad eye Institute (LVPEI) is one of the 11 global expert institutes that form the Commonwealth Eye Health Consortium announced on Commonwealth Day 10 March 2014. The Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust announced a £7.1 million grant to enable experts from various institutions to come together to form the Consortium to combat avoidable blindness. The Consortium will be coordinated by the International Centre for Eye Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. It aims to achieve a major long-term impact in strengthening eye health systems and improve quality of eye care for many people throughout the Commonwealth.

For the first time, a ‘Commonwealth Eye Health Consortium’ has been established to bring together world-class expertise and facilitate eye care professionals to pursue research into eye conditions that affect millions of people. LVPEI is one of the two eye care majors from India who are part of the Consortium. Dr Gullapalli N Rao, Chair, LVPEI, is part of the steering committee of the Consortium.
285 million visually impaired people in the world of which 39 million were blind. At least 80 per cent of blindness and visual impairment was curable or treatable, and good quality eye care is a scarce resource for millions of people across the globe, including in many Commonwealth countries.
About L V Prasad Eye Institute
The L V Prasad Eye Institute (LVPEI) was established in 1986-87 at Hyderabad as a not-for-profit, non-government, public-spirited, comprehensive eye care institution. LVPEI is governed by two trusts: the Hyderabad Eye Institute and the Hyderabad Eye Research Foundation. The Institute is a World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Prevention of Blindness and a Global Resource Center for VISION 2020: The Right to Sight initiative. LVPEI has six active arms to its areas of operations namely Clinical Services, Education, Research, Rehabilitation and Sight Enhancement Services, Eye Bank, and Public Health and Rural Outreach.  For more information, visit www.lvpei.org