Fight cervical cancer like COVID-19, Obasanjo tells FG

A former President, Olusegun Obasanjo, has called on federal and state governments to deploy resources in the fight against cervical cancer as being done in the battle against COVID-19.

He also called for a national policy on prevention and eradication of cervical cancer in Nigeria.

The former president spoke yesterday at the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library (OOPL) in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital, shortly after he was decorated as the Presidential Ambassador by the Cervical CancerFree Nigeria (CCFN) led by Senator Lanre Tejuoso.

The CCFN, which is co-led by Global Oncology (GO), a non-profit foundation and the Legislative Initiative for Sustainable Development (LISDEL) is a grassroots initiative to eliminate cervical cancer in Nigeria.

He also urged the federal government to invest in national-scale procurement and distribution of HPV vaccine to fight

Human Papillomavirus (HPV), the virus responsible for cervical cancer.

Obasanjo said the HPV vaccine must be available for every Nigerian girl child to prevent the spread of cervical cancer in the country.

He said, “What gladdens my heart initially is that, cervical cancer is not like malaria and the reason why we haven’t made much in success in the fight against malaria, is that it is something that affects the temperate zones of the world.

“But this one (cervical cancer), it affects black and white, so they will make sure that whatever research they are making, is focused on women all over the world.

“But our own scientists have their own role to play, because there may be variants of the virus that are particular to our own people. And if that is the case we have to get the vaccine that will deal with our own variants of this virus.

“We should make it clear that the vaccine is free of any adverse effect and in fact, rather than stop children production, it encourages it.”