Asia-Pacific Academy of Ophthalmology (APAO)

The Asia-Pacific Academy of Ophthalmology was founded in 1960, which started with the vision of one man – Dr William John Holmes.

Dr Holmes was born in Budapest. He emigrated to the United States nation in the early 1920s, and started practicing medicine on the Pacific island of Hawaii. At that point, Hawaii was still a United States nation territory and was yet not declared as a state. Hence, Dr. William John Holmes turned his thoughts eastward to the Asia-Pacific region.  In the Fifties, he called upon the leaders in the field of medicine in Asia to unite, which he later mentioned in his address at the second APAO Congress 1964 in Melbourne, “The plan for the organization of the Asia-Pacific Academy of medicine grew out of the belief that eye surgeons within the neighboring countries of Asia, archipelago, and Oceania were featured with identical ophthalmological issues.”

Answer to his call came in September 1958. At the nineteenth International Congress of medicine in Brussels, a final decision was taken up to make the Asia-Pacific Academy of Ophthalmology. One month later in Philipines, Dr Holmes devised the Constitution of the Academy with Dr. Geminiano DE Ocampo (Philippines), Dr. Jesus Tamesis (Philippines), Dr. Angelo and Dr. Henry Martyn Robert F Lowe (Australia). The first APAO Congress was held from October 10-13, 1960.

The Asia-Pacific region is home to more than 50% world’s population. As per the Global Data on Visual Impairments 2010 revealed by the WHO, the number of visually impaired people stands to a massive total of 285 million, of which over a 180 million reside within the Asia-Pacific.

In addition to national ophthalmic societies, APAO has conjointly recruited regional subspecialty societies. At present, APAO has twenty five member organizations comprising half-dozen major regional subspecialty societies and nineteen national ophthalmic societies from completely different countries and territories within the Asia-Pacific region, as well as Australia & New Zealand, Bangladesh, China, Cambodia, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan , Japan, the Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Asian nation and Vietnam.

APAO seeks to disseminate the knowledge of science and art of ophthalmology among all people of the nation. It also vows to promote of mandatory measures to prevent blindness and measures to restore vision to the affected people and any other measures which are deemed important by the society. APAO is also enhancing collaboration between any other societies with the similar motives whether they are local or international. It also organizes local or international conferences related matters of grave importance in the field of ophthalmology.