2022-RA-1673-ESGO The digital trans-african E-health network- a clinical partnership experience

Introduction/BackgroundIn a globalised world, digital platforms have become pivotal to overcome training and healthcare-access inequalities in low-and middle in countries(LMICs). The Trans-African digital e-Health network was established as a capacity-building partnership project between Mali, Morocco and Germany to improve the women´s cancer care. The mainstay of this project is education and training of healthcare professional using digital solutions. A two-day summer school was held to strengthen this digital network. We report on the event and analyse the results of the live-poll questions.MethodologyThe hybrid summer school school event was held in May 2022, hosted by Charite. It covered the main themes of: Screening/Prevention, Treatment and Research/Innovation for cervical and breast cancer. Within each session, online participants were asked to fill out several poll questions. The results were used live as a basis for discussion.ResultsA total of 314 participants registered for the event from nearly 100 countries worldwide. Germany was the country with the highest number of participants. Participation rate was 40.1%. A total of 13 poll questions were asked and discussed live. Based on the anonymous live answers majority of participating countries specified they had a national screening policy for cervical cancer and just more than half had an HPV vaccination program (82% and 56% respectively). In 64% of respondents HPV vaccination was not available for boys. 71% of respondents did not have official gyn-oncology training programs in their countries and 67% stated they could not/did not recruit to clinical trials due to lack of availability. Although 88% stated they would recruit if trials were more accessible in their country or region.ConclusionBuilding sustainable digital pan-regional networks on the basis of clinical partnerships is an effective strategy for increasing knowledge exchange and long-term impact on the standards of care within LMICs regardless of local resources.