SAGES Magazine

EDITORIAL The first edition of our “Red Journal” for 2023 has arrived. The year is accelerating at a pace, and all agree that we are now firmly in the post pandemic phase and that practice is very busy. The full brunt of the effects of lockdown policy and people avoiding routine care, has led to unprecedented increases in patients seeking care. Data from the US and UK suggests increase rates of new cancer detection on screening endoscopy, that declined massively during COVID. We don’t have such data yet from South Africa, but anecdotally there appears to be a similar trend locally. Compounding this is the disastrous effects of electricity blackouts, colloquially called loadshedding. Our hospitals in which we work are dependent on generators to keep our systems running, this influences costs, felt acutely in the private sector. In the public sector, after much debate (for reasons that are unclear as the exemption seems obvious), hospitals are in the process of being exempted from loadshedding or ringfenced for continuous supply. In essence, 2023 has continued the challenges of the previous year, albeit in a different guise. This issue of the Journal has a very diverse range of articles covering inflammatory bowel disease, managing complications of its therapy, hepatocellular carcinoma in pregnancy and a look at the incredible achievements to date of IBD Africa, established several years ago. We have contributions from other parts of Africa with contributions from paediatric gastroenterologists in Tunisia and some local coeliac prevalence work from Algeria. With the year in full stride, many in person meetings are in the offing over the next few months. The Connect meeting happens in May and in August the annual SAGES meeting takes place in Pretoria. An exciting programme awaits, this year in collaboration with the The South African Gastrointestinal Nurses Society (SAGINS) and The South African Society of Paediatric Gastroenterology. Importantly the online meetings continue and grown from strength to strength including regional meetings as well as those on the Project ECHO platform, GECHO and the Viral Hepatitis in SSA clinics. As a prelude, the prestigious International Hepato-Pancreatico- Biliary Association meeting takes place in May 2024 (18th to 24th 2024) at the CTICC. Woven into this meeting will be SAGES 2024 but also the first African Viral Hepatitis Convention, aiming to lay the groundwork for a continental programme of action. The next year is going to be jam-packed with activities, please join where you are able so we can rekindle interactions, opportunity and friendship time lost to the pandemic. Mark Sonderup Editorial IMPORTANT DATES SAGES 2023 Congress Incorporating SAGINS and the South African Paediatric Gastroenterology Society 9 – 12 August 2023 CSIR, Pretoria www.sagescongress.co.za email: sages@easternsun.co.za Early registration closes 31 May 2023 Abstract deadline 15 June 2023 SAGES Scholarships deadline 30 June 2023 THE SOUTH AFRICAN GASTROENTEROLOGY REVIEW 2023 | VOLUME 21 | ISSUE 1 | 1