Greg Nel, Jagrut Lallu and Jacqueline Rowe at CCLS NZ 2024

The World Council of Optometry (WCO) has appointed New Zealand optometrist Jagrut Lallu as one of four global myopia ambassadors to support its work to address myopia as a public health crisis and adopt active myopia management as the standard of care.

All four ambassadors serve a global role, representing a diverse set of regions, and are leading optometrists with extensive experience in myopia management in both clinical practice and educational settings, said WCO president Dr Sandra Block. “With cases of myopia soaring among children, there is an urgent need to adopt myopia management as a standard of care on a global scale. It is an important cause to each of our ambassadors and I’m thrilled to collaborate with them to expand awareness around the world.”

Lallu is a partner of Rose Optometry in Hamilton and a director of contact lens-design software company Innovatus Technology. In 2009, he was one of the first practitioners in New Zealand to establish a myopia control clinic based on evidence-based management methods. He also established the NZ Eye Research Centre, focusing on clinical trials and research, in 2023 and is a clinical senior lecturer at the Deakin School of Optometry in Victoria, Australia, and an honorary teaching fellow at the University of Auckland. The other WCO myopia ambassadors are Professor Nicola Logan from the School of Optometry, Aston University, Birmingham, UK; Síofra Harrington, a lecturer with the School of Physics, Clinical and Optometric Sciences at the Technological University in Dublin, Ireland; and Ashley Wallace Tucker from Bellaire Family Eye Care and The Contact Lens Institute in Houston, Texas, US.

Commenting on his appointment, Lallu said he’s just focused on the job at hand – improving education and changing public perception. “I’m hoping that colleagues will embrace our message and help us grow it.”

New Zealand practitioners are more advanced than any other practitioners globally in terms of their treatment options and the way they implement myopia management, said Lallu, urging colleagues to complete the International Myopia Institute survey on myopia clinical practice. “No one’s doing myopia management to the level of New Zealand. So it would be great if how we practice was reflected in the IMI survey, then people will start to take notice, and maybe then we can get some change.”

The International Myopia Institute survey on myopia clinical practice is available at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/IMI2024English.

The WCO myopia management standard of care resolution, developed in partnership with CooperVision, was introduced in 2021: https://myopia.worldcouncilofoptometry.info/standard-of-care/.