French edition

The French edition of the Community Eye Health Journal, the Revue de Santé Oculaire Communautaire, provides up-to-date and relevant eye care information to eye care staff working in often difficult and isolated conditions in Francophone Africa. Relevant articles and themes are selected from the Community Eye Health Journal in consultation with Francophone advisors. New articles are also commissioned to ensure the journal is relevant to the Francophone region.

Read the Revue online at www.revuesoc.com

5,460 copies of the French edition are sent out to 55 countries. Ninety-five per cent (95%) of our readers reside in Francophone African countries. The journal is published once or twice a year, depending on funding.

Each issue consists of 24-pages, has a specific theme and contains the following regular features: Equipment ‘How to’ (eg.’Caring for a lensmeter’), CPD quiz, Picture quiz, and illustrated community eye health messages relevant to the issue theme.

Our most recent issue was Vol 16 No22 (2020): School Eye Health

This issue explores how school eye health programmes have the potential to change the lives of school children and their teachers by detecting eye conditions and ensuring access to quality eye care. Health education delivered at schools also has the potential to reduce eye disease and visual impairment in the future. Comprehensive programmes should be undertaken in collaboration with ministries of health and ministries of education, and need to be monitored and evaluated to ensure they are a good use of resources and bring about positive change. Guidelines have recently been produced to help plan, implement, monitor and evaluate school eye health programmes.

The forthcoming issue is Vol 16 No 23 (2020): Cataract surgery in patients with complex conditions

Cataract is still the leading cause of blindness worldwide. The majority of cataracts are relatively straightforward to remove, but there is a substantial group of patients in whom cataract surgery will be more challenging. Whether this is due to factors related to the patient, such as diabetes or a systemic inflammatory condition; or factors related to the eye itself, such as corneal endothelial dystrophy, glaucoma or a small pupil; preparation of the surgeon, the equipment and the eye team will ensure that patients receive the best possible visual outcomes.

Paper copies of the Revue are sent free to eye care workers in low income Francophone countries. To subscribe please send your name, job title and postal address to Anita Shah, Editorial Assistant [email protected]

Back issues of the Revue are also included on the annual Community Eye Health Update CD.

Impact of the French edition

The World Health Organisation estimates that there are more than 2 million blind and 6 million visually impaired people living in Francophone countries in Sub Saharan Africa. 1

Francophone Africa also suffers an acute shortages of trained health personnel with less than 1 eye doctor per million population, in France there are 111 per million population.2 Much of the eye care work is provided by nurses and primary eye care workers. There is also a lack of relevant training materials for personnel working in these resource-poor contexts.

Acknowledgements

The Revue gratefully acknowledges its core supporters:

Our publisher, the International Centre for Eye Health, is actively seeking funding to continue and develop the Revue. If your organisation is interested in finding out more about becoming a core supporter of the Revue, please see our core supporters page. We are also very grateful to receive donations towards the work of the Revue from individuals.

References

1. Press Release WHO/9 25 February 2000

2. Data from International Council of Ophthalmology website, 10th April 2012