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African delegates call for scaled up regional efforts in fight against cancer

Xinhua, July 27, 2016 Adjust font size:

A conference on cancer in Africa was wrapped up on Wednesday with a call for scaling up regional efforts in the fight against cancer in general and cervical, breast and prostate cancer in particular.

The 10th edition of the conference has been held under the theme, "A decade of accomplishment, our enduring legacies and challenges ahead," from July 24 to 27 at the African Union Conference Center in Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa.

The Conference has noted with great concern the growing burden of cervical, breast and prostate cancer in Africa and its damaging effect on its communities, nations and the entire region.

It has acknowledged that the incidence of cervical, breast and prostate cancer is rapidly rising with some parts of the continent reporting the highest rates of cervical cancer of up to 40 cases per 100,000 women.

"This is further confounded with highest maternal mortality rate in the region resulting in unacceptably high number of women deaths," said Kebede Worku, Ethiopian State Minister of Health, while reading out the communique of the Conference.

Inadequate investments in the infrastructure for prevention, early detection, treatment and palliative care have been identified as the challenge in addressing cancer.

In his closing remarks, Demeke Mekonnen, Ethiopian Deputy Prime Minister, has emphasized the need to give political will, resources and skills of Africans to combat cancer on the continent.

It was noted during the opening of the Conference that cancer is increasing at an alarming rate in Africa, and it kills more people than HIV/AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis combined.

The communique calls for intensified public awareness with the participation of all stakeholders, particularly, religious and community leaders as well as civil society organizations and the media.

It also calls for exploration and promotion of using innovative technologies to advance cancer screening, diagnosis, treatment and palliative care.

"Invest in human resource development for cancer to create competent cancer workforce by taking advantage of experience sharing, knowledge transfer, networking, and by using available technologies."

"Mobilize and allocate resources for cancer control and care to as much level as the depth and magnitude of cancer deserves," says the communique of the conference.

A report published in 2014 showed that there were 847,000 new cases of cancer in Africa and 591,000 deaths in 2012, representing 6 percent and 7.2 percent of the world total, respectively.

Lack of awareness is one of the challenges on the continent that affected persons report the disease when it is already at an advanced stage.

Lack of equipped medical facilities, access to quality and affordable treatment still pose a challenge in African.

The Conference has also emphasized on the need to support the Forum of African First Ladies against Breast, Cervical, and Prostate Cancer in advocating for African governments to initiate, fund and implement national cervical cancer program. Endit