Avoidable Blindness Initiative celebrates 440,000 treatments

Celebrating the successes of the Avoidable Blindness Initiative (ABI), guests heard from International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness president Bob McMullan and Vision 2020 Australia chair Amanda Vanstone.The ABI was launched in 2007 with $66 million in funding. One of the key outcomes of the ABI was the formation of the Vision 2020 Australia Global Consortium, which has facilitated global engagent in blindness prevention since 2010 through the coordinated efforts of its Australian mbers.Since the Vision 2020 Australia Global Consortium’s inception, the Federal Government has helped support more than 439,953 treatment services through Global Consortium programs, over 838,922 people have been screened, and more than 17,000 training events have been implented.To showcase the results of the ABI and Global Consortium projects, guests read stories that were then used to test their knowledge of global eye health in a quiz. Guests also watched a video that highlighted the stories of eye-health workers and vision-impaired locals from Pakistan, Vietnam and Papua New Guinea.Nearly 90 people attended the dinner, including 23 parliamentarians, three ambassadors, eight advisers, and 10 departmental representatives, as well as special guest Major General Michael Jeffery. The feedback from guests was positive and highlighted how the inspiring personal stories of the people who are working to improve eye health and vision care resonated with the parliamentarians and advisers.Event sponsors included the Brien Holden Vision Institute, CBM Australia, The Fred Hollows Foundation, Novartis Pharmaceuticals, the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Ophthalmologists, and Optometry Australia.Pictured above: Amanda Vandstone, chair of Vision 2020 Australia