Report from the 15th AORTIC International Conference on Cancer in Africa

The AWACAN-ED team attended the AORTIC conference on cancer in Africa in Hammamet, Tunisia from 2nd – 5th November 2025, where the conference theme was ‘Advancing Cancer Care Across Africa: Equity Through Empowering Research and Education’.

The conference came at an important time for the AWACAN-ED programme and enabled the dissemination of key findings from our research. The main contribution was a 2-hour session held in the Plenary Hall on Tuesday 4th November where team members gave the following presentations:

• • Fiona Walter – Overview of AWACAN-ED programme
  • Jennifer Moodley – Mapping time to diagnosis and stage at diagnosis
  • Sarah Day – Barriers and facilitators to timely diagnosis
  • Tasleem Ras – Health Facility preparedness for timely diagnosis of symptomatic cancer
  • Suzanne Scott – Public and primary care provider toolkits for timely diagnosis

This was followed by a Panel discussion moderated by Professor Ophira Ginsburg (Imperial College London) and included panellists: Simbarashe Chinyowa (PhD scholar, UZ), Bothwell Guzha (Co-investigator, UZ), Rosemary Jacobs (PPIE, UMTHA), Verna Vanderpuye (AWACAN-ED External Advisory Board member & Consultant Oncologist, Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, Ghana) and Jennifer Moodley. The Panel reflected on the implications of the AWACAN-ED findings. The session concluded with questions and comments from the audience.

In addition, posters were presented by Sarah Day (Senior Research Officer, UCT), Sudarshan Govender (Masters Scholar and Clinical Research Officer, UCT) and Denis Okova (PhD Scholar, UCT). Below are quotes from them about their experience of the conference, as well as from Simbarashe Chinyowa (PhD Scholar and Clinical Research Officer, UZ).