AFRAN 2025 Tunisia: an opportunity to grow PD in Africa
Last week, the ISPD was present at the 2025 AFRAN Congress in Tunisia – and apart from the opportunity to reconnect with so many ISPD members and friends, the meeting was the perfect platform for meeting with several partners in our effort to expand and strengthen peritoneal dialysis on the continent.
The two joint AFRAN-ISPD sessions, and the other PD-focused content of the program, provided the AFRAN participants with the latest updates on topics such as catheter placement, peeping people on PD, or an overview of the situation of PD in the continent and the barriers for growth.
We took this opportunity to meet with the partners of the Senegal Project (SOSENDT, AFRAN, Vantive) for a follow-up meeting on this project. The number of PD patients in Senegal keeps growing (50 at the moment), and Senegal is already working as a knowledge dissemination point for the region, with doctors and nurses trained through the Senegal project helping now the development of PD programmes in Ivory Coast. This has led to the commitment of Vantive to provide additional support for a new stage of the project, aiming to sustain the growth of PD in the region.
The next activity of the Senegal Project will take place next June, during the annual SOSENDT meeting.
We met as well with the African Healthcare Network (a dialysis provider in East Africa) and learned more about their plans to incorporate peritoneal dialysis into their offer of services. This can be the gate for peritoneal dialysis to penetrate East Africa, and the ISPD has committed to supporting the training of kidney care professionals to reinforce these efforts and empower AHN in their initiative.
Finally, the AFRAN meeting was the perfect occasion to meet with many of the members in the local organising team and the Scientific Program Committee of the upcoming ISPD 2026 Congress in Cape Town. We used our ISPD booth to present the event to the AFRAN participants, and it was heartwarming to see the interest of the audience and their excitement about our event.
We took this opportunity to meet with the partners of the Senegal Project (SOSENDT, AFRAN, Vantive) for a follow-up meeting on this project. The number of PD patients in Senegal keeps growing (50 at the moment), and Senegal is already working as a knowledge dissemination point for the region, with doctors and nurses trained through the Senegal project helping now the development of PD programmes in Ivory Coast. This has led to the commitment of Vantive to provide additional support for a new stage of the project, aiming to sustain the growth of PD in the region.
