Dr Fatima Kyari
MBBS FWACS MSc PhD FNAMed
Associate Professor
LSHTM
Keppel Street
London
WC1E 7HT
United Kingdom
Fatima Kyari is an Associate Professor of Ophthalmic Epidemiology at the International Centre for Eye Health (ICEH) at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM). She leads the development of a new Africa Glaucoma Clinical and Research Network, supported by the ICEH VISION LINKS programme
Fatima Kyari is an ophthalmologist; she worked at National Eye Centre Kaduna for 15 years before joining the College of Health Sciences, University of Abuja, Nigeria. She is an Honorary Consultant and Clinical Glaucoma Lead at the University of Abuja Teaching Hospital with special interest in medical retina.
Fatima is the Director of the Institute for Advanced Medical Research and Training (IAMRAT) at the College of Health Sciences, University of Abuja. IAMRAT is an academic unit for coordinating multidisciplinary medical research, knowledge generation and exchange, clinical and research skills training, and education including postgraduate short courses, Masters and Doctoral degrees courses.
She is an adviser for Light For The World, an International non-governmental developmental organisation based in Austria, supporting the development of Glaucoma Programmes in Burkina Faso, Ethiopia and Mozambique. She led a Pan-African network to develop "A toolkit for glaucoma management in Africa," which was piloted through a collaborative link with Sightsavers Allergan KeepSight programme in Abuja, Nigeria and launched by the International Agency for Prevention of Blindness (IAPB) in March 2021.
Fatima has applied academic knowledge beyond academia and has been involved in international policy development and strategy forums. Some of these include: As lead author of the Commonwealth policy brief on “A sustainable approach to control avoidable blindness and vision loss” and the Commonwealth review of "A Vision for the Commonwealth: Eye Health in the Commonwealth Progress Report 2018-2020;" editorial committee member of the World Health Organization’s “World Report on Vision,” the lead consultant/author for the “Nigeria National Eye Health Policy” and a contributor to the Nigeria National School Eye Health Guidelines.” She is a co-author for the Lancet Global Health Commission on Global Eye Health, which was published in February 2021; and a member of the Programme Expert Committee of the Vision Catalyst Fund.
In her voluntary role as the West Africa (Anglophone) subregional Chair of the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB), Fatima has been involved in high level advocacy, influencing decision-makers on eye health policy and planning in Nigeria and West Africa. She is also a member of the IAPB Board of Trustees and Executive Committee; and a member of the IAPB gender equity working group (GEWG). Fatima is the Chairman of the Glaucoma Society of Nigeria (GSN), the glaucoma subspecialty group of the Ophthalmological Society of Nigeria (OSN).
Fatima has a strong public health background largely driven by her medical training at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, her ophthalmology residency training at National Eye Centre, Kaduna, Nigeria and her academic study (MSc and PhD) at the ICEH at LSHTM.
Affiliations
Teaching
Fatima is active in capacity development and teaches on the MSc in Public Health for Eye Care at LSHTM. She is module co-organiser for the MSc module “Epidemiological Methods Applied to Eye Diseases” and she is supervising a PhD student whose research focuses on "Early diagnosis of glaucoma in Nigeria."
She also teaches on the Public Health Ophthalmology module of the West African College of Surgeons (WACS) in Nigeria. She is faculty and examiner for WACS and trains residents in ophthalmology in Nigeria and supervises them for their fellowship dissertations. She is also involved in the development and teaching of the Basic Research and Dissertation, Public Health Ophthalmology and Glaucoma subspecialties courses of WACS and the LSHTM free online course (MOOC) on Glaucoma.
Research
Fatima played a key role in the Nigeria blindness survey; and her PhD (LSHTM) sponsored by the Fred Hollows Foundation, under the supervision of Professor Clare Gilbert, focused on research into epidemiology of glaucoma in Sub-Saharan Africa and determining ways of improving services for glaucoma care. The evidence generated is now useful towards supporting effective planning, clinical capacity development, resourcing and implementation of glaucoma care services in low and middle income countries.
Some collaborative research and training at IAMRAT, Nigeria include the Cardiovascular Research Training in Nigeria (CeRTIN); setting up an implementation laboratory for integrating Cataract and Glaucoma Simulation-based Surgical education to optimise rapid acqusition of surgical competence and patient safety; the Young Africa Works Disability Inclusion Research which involves inclusion in education and employment for young people with disabilities in 7 African countries; and improving diagnosis for children with cerebral malaria through automated detection of malarial retinopathy.
Selected Publications
