Professor Cesaltina Lorenzoni, begins her term as AORTIC President by attending a regional validation workshop on the new iteration of the World Health Organization’s PEN guidance – the Package of Essential Noncommunicable disease interventions, which is a set of cost-effective tools and protocols designed for primary health care settings to detect and manage major noncommunicable diseases (NCDs).

The purpose of the workshop was to validate and finalize the WHO PEN Cervical Cancer Screening Guideline for publication and dissemination across Africa. I was pleased to see strong representation from colleagues across Africa and the expertise that went into reviewing all sections of the guideline for technical accuracy, feasibility, clarity and alignment with WHO normative guidance.

Specifically, the guidance will support country improvement of screening and triage of positive cases, sharing treatment eligibility criteria and follow‑up algorithms as well as recommendations for building robust referral pathways.

I was particularly pleased that this work includes indicators for programme monitoring and evaluation, which as the lead of the cervical cancer programme in Mozambique, I know is critical for successful incremental improvement for women in our country.

We spent three very productive days in Brazzaville. I also took the opportunity to meet with the WHO AFRO team to discuss common strategic objectives with AORTIC in terms of technical support, training, and health policies to consolidate our WHO AFRO-AORTIC partnership plan.