Nigeria invests $3.2m on free cervical, prostate cancer screenings in 2017
Minister of health, Isaac Adewole, says the country is investing about $3.2 million on free cervical and prostate cancer screenings in hundreds of primary healthcare centres across Nigeria this year, as part of efforts to detect and treat the diseases early.
In an engagement with Nigerians on his social media page (Twitter), Adewole in response to a question on the state of management of the diseases said this, reiterating his ministry’s preparedness to manage the growing cases of cancer in the country.
“My big goal is to have cancer screening done at the Primary Health Coverage (PHC) level as evidence shows burden to be higher in poorer societies. Also we have secured big commitments to support Nigeria’s agenda on cervical cancer from the International Agency for Research on Cancer,” said Adewole.
Commenting on the feasibility of this project, Remi Ajekigbe, head, radiotherapy and oncology at Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), said it was possible to have the cancer screening done at the primary health coverage, “all that is needed is to give an exclusive training to nursing.”
Ajekigbe further said, “For cervical cancer, since it has to do with women, they can carry out the screening by the training using knowledge from the training for nurses, and for the prostate cancer in men, they need drugs and to carry out Prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test to measure the level. If it is an advance cancer, government can get the necessary drugs for treatment.”
While thousands Nigerians are suffering from cervical and prostate cancer, Africa’s largest economy had no functional radiotherapy machine. Adewole however said progress had been made on that front.
“Though we now have 5 functional radiotherapy machines from 0 in 2015. We understand that budget allocation cannot get us to target of 14. This is why we proposed 11bn in 2017 budget to be matched by Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) with $50m to invest in 7 centres for Cancer, Renal and Cardiac care,” he said.
The minister also said that more Linear Accelerators (LINAC) were being revamped and installed across the country.
A LINAC is a device commonly used for external beam radiation treatments for patients with cancer. It delivers high-energy x-rays or electrons to the region of the patient’s tumour in a treatment designed to destroy the cancer cells while sparing the surrounding normal tissue.
Adewole further said that the health ministry had made a case to the Commonwealth Health Organisation by presenting the Nigeria Cervical Cancer Agenda at World Health Assembly 2017.
Anthonia Obokoh