Kenya launches program to curb rising cancer cases

Kenya's health officials on Friday announced the formation of a National Cancer Control Program to help manage the rising cases of cancer in the country.

Principal Secretary in the Health Ministry, Nicholas Muraguri, said the agency will be operational from July.

"There are 40,000 new cases of cancer and 35,000 deaths per year in Kenya," Muraguri told a forum on cervical cancer screening in the capital Nairobi.

Muraguri said cancer was a major public health concern in Kenya and the government was in the process, through the proposed new agency, to avail vaccine and upgrade health facilities in the country.

He said the government was set to open four training centers for cancer control in December.

"We are in the process of improving the availability, quality and accessibility of cervical cancer prevention, treatment and care," he said.

The Health Ministry's 2003-2006 cancer registry shows cervical cancer is the second most common cancer after breast cancer in Kenya, accounting for 20 percent of all reported cancer cases in the country.

The incidence of cervical cancer in Kenya is 2,454 per year with 1,676 annual numbers of deaths recorded every year.

Muraguri said that although cervical cancer could be prevented and controlled through behavior change, vaccination, screening, early detection and treatment of pre-cancerous lesions, most of the eligible women in Kenya had never been screened.

"It is unfortunate that many patients present themselves late for treatment hence making it difficult and costly to be helped," he said.

According to Dr. Catherine Murithi from Roche Diagnostics, opportunities to prevent, cure and relieve suffering from cervical cancer exist through primary prevention of the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV).

Murithi said women in rural areas needed screening machines to let them know their status in good time.

Kenya launched a pilot HPV vaccination program in 2013 and now plans to roll it out in the next couple of years.

In Kenya, visual inspection with acetic acid, visual inspection with lugol's iodine and cytology using conventional Pap smear and HPV testing are the only screening methods that are allowed. Endit