During this month’s Medical Mission to ‪Armenia‬, the Armenian EyeCare Project held two conferences to discuss just how far the country has come in the fields of ‪‎ophthalmology‬ and ‪‎neonatology‬ — and to speak on what’s ahead.

Earlier this month, the ‪‎AECP‬, along with Ministry of Health of Armenia and theOphthalmological center after S. Malayan, held its 14th International Conference on Ophthalmology in ‪‎Yerevan‬, speaking of the many achievements in eye care in Armenia over the past 20 years, including our subspecialty eye clinics, Mobile Eye Hospital, and Center for the Prevention of Childhood Blindness – all of which have been rooted in vigorous training programs for Armenia’s physicians.

Delving further into our goal of preventing childhood blindness in Armenia, the AECP, along with Armenia's Ministry of Health and the Children's Hospital Los Angeles, also organized an international conference on the “Development of Neonatology in Armenia” — speaking of how the care of newborn babies has improved dramatically in Armenia since a training program was established in 2010 that taught Armenian ophthalmologists and nurses how to diagnose and treat a debilitating eye disease — retinopathy of prematurity — only found in premature infants, which could lead to ‪#‎blindness‬ if untreated. Since the program started, over 10,000 babies have been screened and about 200 have undergone a procedure or surgery to prevent blindness.