Mozambique NCDI Poverty Commission

A new initiative to strengthen global collaboration and research on NCD care in low- and middle-income countries marks “an important milestone for scientific cooperation between Europe and Africa.”

An international partnership that includes the NCDI Poverty Network and its Mozambique co-secretariat, housed at Universidade Eduardo Mondlane in Maputo, received a 4-million-euro award from the European Commission to assess and support the implementation of PEN-Plus in Mozambique.

The NCDI Poverty Network recently published a Portuguese edition of PEN-Plus Clinical Tools and Programmatic Standards, a reference both for planning PEN-Plus programs and for assessing and refining existing PEN-Plus clinics. The team has already published English and French editions of the handbook.

For three years, João Mindo had difficulty walking, eating, and even breathing. It wasn’t until a PEN-Plus clinic opened in rural Mozambique that he received his diagnosis: rheumatic heart disease. Following mitral valve repair surgery in Maputo, the 14-year-old now receives care close to home.

On 2 June, Mozambique Minister of Health H.E. Dr. Armindo Daniel Tiago visited the PEN-Plus clinic at Nhamatanda Rural Hospital.

Efforts to expand PEN-Plus across sub-Saharan Africa received a major boost today, when the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust announced a $9 million grant to the World Health Organization Regional Office for Africa to expand care for people living with severe noncommunicable diseases (NCDs).

The stark realities of living with severe noncommunicable diseases in extreme poverty became clear to members of the High-Level Advisory Group of the PEN-Plus Partnership when they convened in Mozambique in March to discuss strategies for supporting initiation and scale-up of PEN-Plus in resource-poor countries.

As Mozambique prepares to open its first PEN-Plus clinic in Nhamatanda, NCDI Poverty Network Co-Chair Dr. Ana Mocumbi, Universidade Eduardo Mondlane Chair of Medicine Dr. Sam Patel, and Network PEN-Plus Regional Technical Advisor Dr. Jorge Sixpence led training sessions for four days in December. Twenty five healthcare professionals including physicians, general medicine technicians, nutritionists, and data managers attended the training.

More than 60 representatives of leading global health policy, technical, advocacy, and financing institutions and people living with NCDs gathered at UNICEF House in New York on September 15, 2022, to introduce the PEN-Plus Partnership, a major international initiative to address the global burden of severe NCDs and injuries that cause more than 500,000 avoidable deaths every year among children and young adults living in extreme poverty.

NCDI Poverty Network Co-Chair Dr. Ana Mocumbi and the Mozambique Co-Secretariat and Southern Africa Regional Hub team recently hosted NCDI Poverty Network Co-Chair Dr. Gene Bukhman and Director of Programs Dr. Emily Wroe for a three-day visit to the provinces of Maputo and Sofala as Mozambique prepares to implement PEN-Plus.

Five months after the launch of the NCDI Poverty Network Co-Secretariat and Southern Africa Regional Hub at Universidade Eduardo Mondlane (UEM) in Maputo on 27 October 2021, the Mozambique Co-Secretariat is preparing to move into office space assigned for it on the main university campus.

The Mozambique NCDI Poverty Commission launched their final report in Maputo on June 11 in Maputo.