On August 12, China’s one and only WHO Collaborating Centre for Eye Care and Vision was officially launched in the Zhujiang New Town Campus, Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center (ZOC) of Sun Yat-sen University.

The Collaborating Centre will serve as an international high-level ophthalmology academic cooperation platform to assist WHO in carrying out research and technology promotion of global eye health management.

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Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General of the WHO, said in his congratulatory letter that he has no doubt that the ZOC will not relent in its efforts towards excellent ophthalmic care, research, and education at national, regional, and global levels.

Martin Taylor, WHO Representative to China, said in his letter, “In recent years, we have seen that China has taken strong policy measures to focus on vision problems, including school reforms to control the myopia epidemic.”

Taylor said that the designation ZOC as a WHO Collaborating Centre is a testament to the excellence and significant of its work towards the shared mission: vision for everyone, “I look forward to your center playing a leading role in the Western Pacific.”

Stuart Keel, Technical Officer of the Department of Noncommunicable Diseases of WHO, introduced global eye health targets 2030 at the launch. They aim at 40 percentage point increase in effective coverage of refractive error and 30 percentage point increase in effective coverage of cataract surgery by 2030.

Andreas Mueller, Consultant of the Department of Noncommunicable Diseases of WHO, began his presentation of WHO MyopiaEd Programme with the figure that around 3.4 billion people in the world will have myopia by 2030. It is hoped to explore ways to delay the onset and slow down the progression of myopia through behavioral changes, and educate and improve people's awareness and prevention of myopia.

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“The reason why we chose Guangzhou is that we've already learned in the last 2 or 3 years of working with ZOC that we have a partner that is delivering high quality work which very much fits the work we do,” said Mueller.

Lin Haotian, Director of ZOC, called upon attention to the new changes in eye diseases along with changes in the disease spectrum and life, and adjust prevention and control strategies of eye diseases in a timely manner, such as the increase in the number of chronic diseases, diabetic retinopathy cases, and so on.

Liang Xiaoling, Former Deputy Director of ZOC and Head of the Guidance Team of Guangdong Blindness Prevention and Treatment, said that after years of efforts, the number of cataract surgeries in China has increased from more than 600 per million population more than 20 years ago to over 3,300.

Link to the report: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/Q233gmCxAKNmVHaxpAX4ZA