Let’s do more to make real progress in the cancer war

In the last two decades, Kenya has waged a vicious war against cancer yet the threats remain real and startling. Today, it is third in the list of top killers in the country, accounting for 7 per cent deaths after infectious diseases and heart ailments. Current cancer trends, spread across all ages, are disconcerting. In 2012, there were just 20,000 reported cases. Now, the number has risen to 41,000 annually, and there are fears the figure could rise.

In 2015 for instance, 973 new cases of men were handled at the Texas Cancer Centre in Nairobi while the number of women was 1,503. In 2017, the number of new cases had almost doubled with a 47 per cent surge for all cases.