CPHIA Side Event to Focus on PEN-Plus in Southern Africa

PEN-Plus trainer Medson Boti shows clinical coordinator Joyline Chihota how to do point-of-care echocardiography as part of PEN-Plus cardiology training in Zimbabwe. pictured far right is colin pfaff, a senior regional advisor for southern africa for the ncdi poverty network.

The Southern Africa Regional Hub of the NCDI Poverty Network and the Centre for Infectious Disease Research in Zambia (CIDRZ) will co-host a side event during the Third Annual International Conference on Public Health in Africa (CPHIA), which will take place at the Mulungushi International Conference Center in Lusaka, Zambia, on 27–30 November.

The side event, “PEN-Plus Partnership: An NCDI Poverty Network Initiative in Partnership with WHO-Afro,” will take place on 29 November from 4 to 6 p.m. CAT.

PEN-Plus is a proven model for delivering healthcare to people living with severe, chronic noncommunicable diseases in resource-limited settings. During the session, experts will share results and lessons from the implementation of PEN-Plus in Southern Africa. Presenters will describe PEN-Plus implementation in Malawi, which has moved to national scale-up of the program, and share the early experiences of the other Southern Africa countries that have launched PEN-Plus programs: Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

Professor Fastone Goma, director of the Centre for Primary Care Research at the University of Zambia School of Medicine, and Dr. Ana Mocumbi, co-chair of the NCDI Poverty Network, organized the event and will serve as its moderators. During the event, Dr. Mocumbi, who is based in Maputo, Mozambique, will provide an overview of PEN-Plus. Two panel discussions will follow. The first, “Tackling Implementation Challenges in PEN-Plus,” will feature several speakers:

• Dr. Yolanda Marcelino, who will offer “Centering Chronic NCDs in Rural Health Care: Case Finding and Retention in Care for Severe NCDs”;

• Dr. Peter Karoli, medical research scientist at the National Institute for Medical Research in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, who will present “Decentralizing Care through Robust Mentorship Systems and Transferring Skills for Complex and Severe NCD Care by Mid-Level Professionals”; and 

• Dr. Alvern Mutengerere, project manager for noncommunicable diseases at SolidarMed, the implementing partner for PEN-Plus in Masvingo, Zimbabwe, who will speak on “Getting Creative with Implementation Challenges in PEN-Plus.” 

The second panel discussion, “Public Sector Support,” will feature two speakers: Prof. Goma, who will speak on “Patients at the Centre of the Strategy,” and Evelyn Chibwe, a nurse specializing in noncommunicable diseases at Abwenzi Pa Za Umoyo (APZU/Partners In Health Malawi) in Neno, Malawi, who will present “Scale-Up Strategies: Learning from Current Models.”

[Note: Unfortunately, we can no longer offer a virtual option for viewing this event. We will, however, post a follow-up article.]