Additionally, he says, such clinical trials are fundamental in the production of therapies that respond better to the genetic specifications of African populations.
Clinical trials have at least four phases, all of which monitor for safety and adverse events in trial patients.
Phase I trials determine the dose which will be least toxic to the patient, Phase II checks whether the least toxic dose is effective, Phase III compares the new drug with what is currently available, and Phase IV, also known as post-marketing or therapeutic use studies, investigates rare but serious side effects that the new drug or therapy might cause.
Whereas scaling up trials in Africa is considered to be critical in strengthening healthcare interventions and improving access to lifesaving medicines and vaccines, experts reckon that of the 736 clinical trials conducted in Africa, only 26 per cent are cancer-related. Critically, only six per cent of these were conducted in countries with predominantly black patients.
Over the years, pharmaceutical companies have been slow in embracing sub-Saharan Africa for the conduct of clinical trials, with most non-communicable disease clinical trials from the continent being conducted in Egypt or South Africa.
"There are drugs that the African genome does not metabolise properly, that means; a small dose for a Caucasian patient may be a high dose for an African patient," says Prof Saleh, who is also an oncologist.
He further adds that the side effects of a drug or its benefits might differ, hence the need to do clinical trials in Africa and on Africans as opposed to depending on results from the West.
Factors such as lack of established clinical trial units with trained personnel, willingness to take part in trials, and prolonged and often replicative regulatory processes hamper clinical trials in Africa.
In Kenya, where doctors record at least 42,000 new cases of cancer annually and an additional 27,000 cancer-related deaths in the same period, the need to invest more in clinical research is particularly urgent.
They are the heart of all medical advances and the last hope for patients like Olivia and many others diagnosed with serious conditions like cancer.