Last month, a Gradian team travelled to Yaoundé, Cameroon, to attend the 32nd annual SARANF Conference (SARANF is the French-speaking African Society of Anesthesia and Resuscitation). Every year, the conference gathers a community of anesthesia providers and advocates hailing from over 20 French-speaking African countries and beyond; all are eager to share scientific knowledge, learn from each other’s experiences, and share advances in improving anesthesia education and training inimg_2905 sub-Saharan Africa. We were honored this year to be given the opportunity to sponsor the participation of Dr Jackson Athombo from the Biamba Marie Mutombo Hospital (Kinshasa, DRC) and Dr Fernand Soton from the CNHU hospital (Cotonou, Benin) at this important event in the field of global anesthesia!

In Yaoundé, we also had the opportunity to visit CURES, a unique competence center hosted at École Polytechnique (EPFL). The engineers at CURES focus on reinforcing primary healthcare systems in southern countries with reliable and sustainable electricity supply and with appropriate equipments. Dr Raissa Onanena, co-chair, introduced us to some of the exciting work done at CURES. One of the current CURES projects aims at setting up an emergency power supply and electrical power stabilization system adapted to the needs of district hospitals in Cameroon, with a deployment strategy based on entrepreneurship rather than humanitarian aid. Other projects include the development of appropriate health technologies such as GlobalDiagnostiX, an ultra-robust radiology device with a service-life of +10 years, and GlobalNeonat, an affordable, effective and durable incubator in the context of district hospitals in low- and middle-income countries.

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