As the Government crackdown in the transport sector starts to yield good results, statistics from the Ministry of Health show that in Kenya cancer kills at least 90 people daily.
In one year therefore, the deadly disease kills 32,900 people accounting to 69 percent of the total cancer victims.
This is 10 times more than the total deaths caused by road accidents. Some 3,000 Kenyans die in road carnage yearly.
The crackdown in the matatu sector was activated by an increase of deaths in the Kenyan roads this year. The question is what is the Government doing to mitigate the issue of cancer?
The Ministry of Health through the Kenya National Cancer Control came up with a strategic plan in June last year that would run from 2017-2022 on how to mitigate the disaster.
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The strategy involved construction of at least eight modern cancer centres by the year 2022.
The main objective was to reduce cancer cases, morbidity and mortality in Kenya through access to population based primary prevention, early detection, quality diagnostics, treatment and palliative care services.
Despite a significant increase of movements, organisations and foundations that raise cancer awareness, the prevalence of the disease has been going up each year.
In 2012 for instance, there were 40,000 new cases and 27,000 deaths annually but the results released by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in September 2018 show that Kenya records 47,887 new cancer cases annually and the death toll rose to 32,900 people per year.
The question is, are the responsible agencies downplaying the cancer problem? If not, why then is the implementation process slow?
