The President of Nigeria Medical Association, (NMA), Dr Francis Faduyile at the weekend advocated urgent implementation of the National Cancer Control plan 2018-2022 by the Federal Government.
Dr Faduyile in a statement on this year’s World Cancer Day alerted that the World Health Organization estimated that there were 18.1million new cases of Cancer in 2018 which was a significant increase of about 4million cases compared to last estimate of 14.1million new cases in 2012.
The NMA President stressed that Nigeria has ” an estimated 115,950 new cases of Cancer and an estimated 70,327 cancer deaths in 2018″, saying, “the cancer death rate in our country is still one of the worst in Africa and this requires urgent attention”.
“The Association advocate for urgent scale up of the implementation of the National Cancer Control plan 2018- 2022. There is need to urgently raise awareness on cancer prevention, enforce necessary legislations with implications on cancer prevention such as those on tobacco use and ensure universal availability of necessary measures for cancer prevention such as the incorporation of HIV vaccine into the Primary Health Care immunisation as outlined in the control plan needs urgent implementation”.
“Cancer screening and early detection services need urgent intervention. This is very important to reduce the proportion of patients that present with the advance diseases associated with poor outcome. We implore the government to ensure timely completion of on going projects on cancer treatment to increase access to treatment and ensure a progressive reduction in the incidence of cancer and cancer related deaths in Nigeria. Once again, we advocate for the inclusion of insurance scheme to more Nigerians”
“The World Health Organization estimated that there were 18.1million new cases of Cancer in 2018 which was a significant increase of about 4million cases compared to last estimate of 14.1million new cases in 2012. It is estimated that in every 5 man and 1 in every 6 woman develop cancer in their lifetime and that 1 in every 8 man and 1 in every 11 every 11 woman die of cancer globally. This is a very worrying trend and we must all rise up to curb this menace”, he said.
Speaking further, the NMA President stressed that Africa “is estimated to have about 5.8percent of the new cases but a disproportionately higher 73 percent of cancer death globally”, saying, ” this is attributable to low awareness and poor attitude to cancer prevention, poor facilities and higher incidence of cancer types with poor outcome”.
He then expressed the NMA appreciation of the efforts of the Federal government “towards the implementation of the Nigeria National Cancer plan 2018-2022, the on going renovation of Cancer treatment facilities in tertiary centers in the country such as the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), National Hospital, Abuja and the National Cancer Centre, Abuja.This is indeed a right direction”.
