Tuesday 25th May, Sydney, Australia – The International Myopia Institute (IMI) welcomes the relaunch of Myopia Awareness Week, from May 24 – 28, 2021, supporting this important global initiative of BHVI.
“There remains much to do in terms of myopia awareness. In many parts of the world, practitioners as well as the general public do not realise that we can prevent and slow myopia progression clinically, or even need to,” said IMI Executive Director, Dr. Monica Jong.
This year has seen significant advances in myopia treatment, prevention and education. The IMI has recently released a second series of highly anticipated white papers in a special edition of Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science, presenting a highlights session at the ARVO 2021 meeting in early May. The IMI will be releasing the first versions of clinical summaries for these reports during Myopia Awareness Week, available at myopiainstitute.org.
“As eye care professionals, we play an important role in driving myopia awareness and patient education, creating change through our research, our patients, and our voices,” said Professor Serge Resnikoff, IMI Chair. “We hope that our work will lend itself greatly to the advancement of myopia care for all eye care professionals, governments, policy makers, educators and the general public.”
BHVI Myopia Awareness Week is focused on patient education, encouraging eye care professionals to promote discussion with parents and patients, to improve myopia awareness from their practice.
Social media toolkits, guidelines, the myopia calculator, and news resources are available at bhvi.org.
ABOUT THE INTERNATIONAL MYOPIA INSTITUTE
The International Myopia Institute was formed following the WHO-BHVI meeting on myopia and high myopia in 2015, due to the need to address the increasing levels of myopia and high myopia worldwide that can lead to potentially sight threatening complications for an individual, and the massive global burden associated with lost productivity.
The IMI is a global group of experts who have come together to discuss, debate and make available the latest evidence-based recommendations in classifications, patient management, and research, in the form of the IMI white papers. The IMI white papers and clinical summaries are made freely available in many world languages so that the evidence can be disseminated to all corners of the world and to those that would benefit the most – practitioners, governments, policy makers, educators and the general public.
Our mission is to advance research, patient management and education in myopia to prevent future vision impairment and blindness associated with increasing myopia. We aim to do this by bringing together, scientists, clinicians, policy makers, government and educators into the field of myopia to stimulate collaboration and sharing of knowledge.
Founded by Brien Holden Vision Institute (BHVI).
Supported by Zeiss, Essilor, CooperVision, Alcon and Oculus.
For further information, please contact:
Dr. Monica Jong, BOptom, PhD
Executive Director, International Myopia Institute
m.jong@bhvi.org
+61 421 487 547
