Control not all gloom and doom with gains, albeit slow, reported

Kenya in its second national cancer control strategy has made some notable achievements, including saved lives, improved infrastructure and more trained experts.

Within the next three years, the Kenya National Cancer Control Strategy 2017-2022 promises to reduce the incidence and number of cancer deaths, improve survival rates and patients’ quality of lives.

“With the increase of cancer deaths from 28,000 in 2012 to 32,987 last year, this may sound discouraging, but we are making some gains nevertheless,” says Nicholas Abinya, a senior cancer consultant at Kenyatta and Nairobi hospitals.

While launching the national cancer treatment guidelines in 2013, the government promised to set up four regional cancer centres in Kisumu, Nyeri, Mombasa and Eldoret.

The guidelines had also recommended the training of requisite cancer experts to staff the proposed facilities. Prof Abinya says while the centres are yet to be put up, they are already training the required oncology experts at the University of Nairobi.

The university is offering a fully-paid two-year course which was launched in 2016 as a first step to address the shortage of cancer specialists in the country.

Abinya, who is the training programme director, says it has capacity to take up to 22 trainees with the pioneering group having graduated last year.

“But more impactful is the number of poor Kenyans who are able to access cancer treatment  through the National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF)," says David Makumi, the chairman of Kenya Network of Cancer Organisations.  

In the 2017/18 financial year, NHIF spent Sh1.36 billion for cancer treatment payments, an increase of 11 per cent spent in the previous year. Apart from the huge spend and numbers, a new study at Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital, Eldoret, says the insurance is actually saving lives.

The study, published last month (June 7, 2019) in the journal Supportive Care in Cancer, shows child cancer patients with insurance have higher survival rates than the uninsured. The study involved 280 patients. Thirty seven per cent of uninsured versus 28 per cent of insured patients abandoned treatment, and 24 per cent of uninsured versus 37 per cent of insured patients had event-free survival. The researchers say more than a third of the patients had abandoned treatment mainly due to financial difficulties.

The cancer strategy puts emphasis on prevention as opposed to treatment. In an earlier media presentation, Dr Alfred Karagu, the CEO National Cancer Institute at the Ministry of Health, said it is only prevention that will make the biggest impact in stopping cancer. Dr Karagu said their prevention strategy is based on the reduction of alcohol and tobacco use, more physical activity, healthy diets and a less polluted environment.

The cancer control strategy promises to reduce the use of alcohol from 19 to 13 per cent and completely eliminate exposure of alcohol to children and youth by 2022. The strategy has also set targets to reduce the use of tobacco, pesticides and increase consumption of fruits and vegetables.