Cancer is Curable but if you consider the following steps

Nairobi; Kenya: She is not shy to say that brain drain and talent flight is hindering the fight against the increasing cancer burden.

“Even committed health professionals eventually become frustrated when the basic infrastructure they need for their work is lacking,” she says.

Initiative to tackle disease early, she says, is critical because health in Africa is still seriously under-funded, yet these Non–Communicable Diseases greatly affect the productive population.

“Cancer and other chronic diseases must top the list of health care policies,” she says. “The return on investment in prevention, early diagnosis and treatment will be worthwhile.”

CANCER IS CURABLE

Specialists agree that, if diagnosed early, and with proper management, cancer is curable through radiotherapy, surgery or chemotherapy, singularly or in combination.

However, those procedures have to be preceded by sustainable structures.

Most African countries have not made it a habit to document cancer-related illnesses and deaths, she says, yet such a practice is essential for planning, monitoring and evaluation, and control.

In a paper titled Cancer in Africa: A Preventable Public Health Crisis which she co-authored with seven others in February 2012, Dr Moeti notes that cancer cases are expected to increase, as people in Africa adopt lifestyles that include tobacco use, unhealthy diets, harmful use of alcohol and reduced physical activity.

In the paper, Dr Moeti and her colleagues note that four out of every five people are diagnosed with cancer when their cancers are already at advanced stages largely because of low awareness about symptoms, inadequate screening services, inadequately equipped referral facilities and socio-cultural beliefs and practices.The gospel that individuals should adopt healthy lifestyles has been preached many times, and Dr Moeti says it is time it was considered a collective responsibility of communities, countries, regions and further embraced across the continent.

The authors of the paper whose underlying message is “Alarm must be raised now before it is too late” are calling for the setting up and support of proactive national cancer prevention and control programmes.

The authors note that Africa needs to be more proactive because its young population is large and that means the consequences are enormous since cancer largely affects the economically productive age groups.

“Prevention is extremely important,” she says. “Africa has an important window of opportunity to prevent a higher cancer burden taking its toll on the continent.”