PEN-Plus in Animation

A screenshot from the World Health Organization’s recent animated explainer video on PEN-Plus

Although the central concept behind PEN-Plus—a strategic integration of resources to enable care for people living with severe noncommunicable diseases in extreme poverty—is relatively simple, it can be challenging to explain the model simply. Fortunately, the World Health Organization’s Regional Office for Africa recently shared an updated version of its animated explainer video on PEN-Plus.

The video is a re-creation of one produced in collaboration with the NCDI Poverty Network and screened at the first International Conference on PEN-Plus in Africa, held in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in April 2024.

After opening with stories of a girl with type 1 diabetes and a baby boy with sickle cell disease, the video illustrates how PEN-Plus empowers local health workers through specialized training, provides essential resources, and delivers patient-centered care to bring crucial NCD services closer to home for people living in rural areas of sub-Saharan Africa.

The video, which is narrated in English with French subtitles, ends with a plea to sustain efforts toward comprehensive action on NCDs. All 47 countries in the WHO African Region have embraced PEN-Plus as their official strategy to ensure care for people living with severe NCDs.

The final message provides a fitting call to action in the lead-up to the Fourth United Nations High-Level Meeting on the Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Diseases, to be held in September: “Let’s rally with governments and stakeholders to secure vital funds for the implementation of WHO PEN and PEN-Plus to catalyze transformative change in NCDs and public health across the continent!”