AFRICA’S RISING CANCER DEATHS EXCEED 700,000

Health experts have cautioned that Africa is set to face the predominant share of the worldwide cancer burden, with new cases surpassing 1.1 million and annual deaths climbing to 700,000. In his speech during the recent 10th Edition of the Merck Foundation’s Africa Asia Luminary in Mumbai, India, Dr Rajendra Badwe, director of Tata Memorial Centre in India, said almost half of these cases die within 12 months of diagnosis.

“There is a need to re-evaluate standardization of care versus standard of care,” said Dr Badwe, adding also that experience is showing a biting need to establish relevant training for oncologists to deliver quality care in the continent.

Despite the high cancer burden, experts are worried that Africa has only three per cent of the world’s cancer treatment facilities, with radiotherapy available in just 22 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.

This low access to quality medical care is the largest contributing factor to the very low survival rates recorded in the continent and is made worse by late diagnosis.

A 2020 Lancet report indicates that more than one million people in Africa will be dying from cancers annually in the next seven years, or by the year 2030, if less is done to curtail the growing burden in the continent.

Africa is also projected to account for nearly 50 per cent of the global childhood cancer burden by 2050.

To confront this concern, the conference in Mumbai brought together at least 6,000 participants from 70 countries, including First Ladies of African countries like First lady Neo Masisi, scientists, doctors, and key stakeholders in the health sector to deliberate on how to build healthcare capacity and improve access to quality and equitable healthcare in Africa and beyond.

Dr Rasha Kelej, chief executive officer of Merck Foundation announced at least 1,700 scholarships of one-year diploma and twoyear master’s degrees to young doctors from 50 countries in 42 critical but underserved specialities such as oncology and cancer care, endocrinology, fertility care, rheumatology and neuroimaging.

The training, said Dr Kelej, seeks to equip specialists in the continent with relevant skills to help fight the cancer scourge.

Experts say that, despite technological progress in oncology, Africa still grapples with primary prevention and early cancer detection services, and delays in diagnosis and treatment, all of which end up contributing to the high burden of non-communicable disease in the region.

For instance, clinical examination by health workers could help reduce breast cancer by 20 per cent, while visual inspection by individuals could help reduce mortality from the same by another 20 per cent.

In Botswana, around 2800 new cases of cancer are expected to be diagnosed each year by 2030. The country’s severe shortage of cancer facilities, programs, and trained personnel translates into the grim statistic that roughly three out of four patients diagnosed with cancer will die of the disease. In 2020, there were 2010 newly diagnosed cases of cancer and 1112 deaths in the same year.

Statistics by the World Health Organization(WHO) show that the most common types of cancers in adults in Botswana are cervical, that accounts for 18.6 per cent, breast at 10.4 per cent, Kaposi sarcoma at 10 per cent, prostate at nine per cent, and oesophagus cancer, which accounts for 5.4 per cent.

These types of cancers, doctors say, contribute to nearly half of all new cancer cases.

Poor diets, alcohol and tobacco use, obesity and physical inactivity have been faulted as major drivers of the rise in cancer cases being witnessed globally.