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The surface of the world
October 2, 2020 - Bill Harvey reports on a virtual conference organised by TFOS that offered a fascinating snapshot of the various challenges to ocular surface health from a wide range of countries around the world.
Author: Bill Harvey
Published: 02/10/2020
As some recompense for the disappointment felt by many over the Covid-enforced cancellation of the TFOS 2020 conference, those of us with an interest in keeping up to date on matters relating to ocular surface disease enjoyed an excellent online virtual meeting recently. The Tear Film and Ocular Surface Society (TFOS) which hosted the meeting in Rome (figure 1) had managed to gather together key researchers and clinicians from countries across the globe to discuss ‘Unique challenges and unmet needs for the management of ocular surface diseases throughout the world.’ The result gave delegates a chance to hear about groundbreaking research into ocular surface disease, but of perhaps greater interest during these challenging times was the opportunity to hear of some of the very distinct difficulties met in individual countries. It is this I hope to reflect in this article.
Introduction
Proceedings began with a reminder from Professor David Sullivan (Boston, US) that TFOS has quite a heritage. The first meeting of the nascent organisation took place back in 1992, some time before the now essential DEWS reports were heard of. The floor was then handed over to the session facilitators in Rome, Piera Versura (Bologna, figure 2) and the UK’s own TFOS ambassador, Sarah Farrant (figure 3).
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