The 210 ophthalmologists who currently serve approximately 3.6 million people in Moldova – Europe’s poorest country – are about to benefit from a collaborative education program aimed at eliminating visual impairment due to uncorrected refractive error.
Moldova is sandwiched between Ukraine and Romania and 17 per cent of the country’s population lives below the poverty line.
The program, which includes lectures, self-study time and strengthening workshops to reduce the rate of uncorrected refractive errors, is being implemented by the Brien Holden Vision Institute in collaboration with Optometry Giving Sight, among other groups.
The first graduates from the programme will provide optometry services from September 2015. The next phase of training involves two additional courses and will be carried out in September 2014 and spring 2015.
