Cancer: Enugu Government tasks regulatory agency, diagnostic centers on excessive radiation
The Enugu State Government says it has initiated talks with the Nigeria Nuclear Regulatory Authority (NNRA) on how to protect people from excessive radiation to prevent high rate of cancer in the state.
The state Commissioner for Health, Dr Emmanuel Obi made the disclosure in Enugu on Wednesday at a Cancer Awareness programme organised by two groups, Breast Without Spot (BWS) and Bring Back Beauty (BBB).The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that every October has been declared Breast Cancer Awareness month by some major charities to increase awareness on cancer and to raise funds for research into its cause, prevention, diagnosis and treatment.
Obi said that the ministry was also planning a stakeholder’s meeting with owners of diagnostic centres in the state to discuss how to keep safety standards up.The commissioner, who emphasized the importance of taking preventive measures to fight breast cancer, also pledged the ministry’s partnership with BWS-BBB Project to fight the high spate of the disease.He stressed the need to embark on intensive cancer awareness across the state to sensitize people on early detection.
A Professor of Radiation Medicine, College of Medicine, University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN), Ifeoma Okoye, has explainedThe Chief Executive Officer of BWS, Prof Ifeoma Okoye attributed Nigeria’s high morbidity of cancer to late detection, infrastructural deficit, lack of radiation and medical oncologists.Okoye, who is a professor of Radiation Medicine also listed unaffordable medical bills, poor lifestyle habits and a lack of a structured cancer screening plan asThe don stated these on Tuesday during a Go Pink Day organized by the BWS-Bring Back Beauty (BBB) Project, a coalition of cancer control advocates in the United Kingdom, US and Nigeria.
The professor explained that late detection of cancer in the country was tied to people’s fear that cancer is a death sentence because of the poor survival statistics.She noted that the country had less than 10 functional radiotherapy machines when, in the worst case scenario, it should have at least 200 machines for her 200 million population.According to Okoye, the country is suffering from a deficit of radiation oncologists and breast surgeons and did not even have medical oncologists.The University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital Enugu (UNTH) don also pointed out that the cost of screening was making women avoid screenings that could help prevent late detection.
“This is why Nigeria’s five-year breast cancer survival rate is less than 40 per cent, compared to United States’ (US) 86 per cent,” she said. The cancer advocate also listed poor lifestyle choices such as drinking alcohol, smoking, and eating food high in fatty acids, among others, as risk factors for cancer.Okoye explained, “The major problem is this late detection. Even if we improve every other area of management and we do not do something about this, we will continue to have high mortality.“We are still suffering from infrastructural deficit. Our radiotherapy services have improved a bit, but there’s so much room for more.
“If you go to hospitals, you’ll see loads of patients waiting.“The waiting lines are still very long because we haven’t even gotten the level of radiotherapy facilities that we ought to have.On unaffordable medical bill for cancer detection and care, she noted that “we need to put together the universal basic health insurance scheme.“If we are able to do this, then the out-of-pocket expenditure will be taken out,” she added.Meanwhile, the BWS-BBB Project, a coalition of group based in the United Kingdom, on Sunday trained and screened over 450 women for breast cancer.
The advocacy group said it was planning to deploy the women across the 17 Local Government Areas of Enugu State to create awareness about breast cancer.This, it added, would help to ameliorate the increasing cancer burden in Nigeria and increase her survival statistics. (NAN)
