Commit more resources to cervical cancer screening

Saturday, June 26, 2010 (The Mirror Pg 34)

By Rebecca Kwei
A CANCER CONTROL FOCAL PERSON of the Ghana Health Service, Dr Kofi Nyarko, has called on the government to commit more resources to the effective screening of cervical cancer in the country.
He said cervical cancer was the most common cancer affecting women in Ghana and the lack of an effective and systematic national testing or treatment as compared to other developed countries was increasing the cases of the disease.
Cervical cancer affects tissues of the cervix (the organ connecting the uterus and vagina). It is usually a slow-growing cancer that may not have symptoms but can be found with regular Pap tests (a procedure in which cells are scraped from the cervix and looked at under a microscope). Cervical cancer is almost always caused by human papillomavirus (HPV) infection.
Dr Nyarko made this known during a press conference in Accra ahead of the 4th Stop Cervical Cancer in Africa to be held in Accra between July 25 and July 27 this year.
It will be on the theme: “Africa unite in action, mobilising political and financial support to strengthen cervical cancer prevention”.
The three-day international conference is in collaboration with Princess Nikky Breast and Cervical Cancer Foundation, a Nigerian based non-governmental organisation (NGO) at the forefront of breast and cervical cancer prevention and control in Africa.
Giving the cervical cancer statistics, Dr Nyarko said 274,000 deaths were recorded annually, out of which 61,000 (78 per cent) of those deaths were from Africa. About 79,000 women are diagnosed of cervical cancer in Africa each year.
He said women in developing world had the highest risk of developing cervical cancer because few are effectively screened.
He said although there had been interventions in Ghana such as the cervicare project to prevent and treat cervical cancer, there was the need for a systematic national campaign to increase awareness of the disease.
For his part, the Minister of Health, Dr Benjamin Kunbuor, quoting from a World Health Organisation (WHO) studies, said that 18 per cent of all cancer deaths in Ghana was due to cervical cancer.
He noted that unfortunately, most of the cancers seen at the country’s health facilities were advanced cases which could have been cured if they had been detected early and that management of those advanced cases was very expensive.
“Prevention, early detection and treatment of early stages of cervical cancer is very cost effective and has good outcome,” he said.
Dr Kunbuor expressed the hope that conference would accelerate Ghana’s efforts at advocacy and awareness creation, as well as enhance the country’s efforts to implement a comprehensive cervical cancer prevention programme.
The Executive Director of Princess Nikky Breast Cancer Foundation, Princess Nikky Onyeri, said the conference was expected to advocate increased awareness of cervical cancer in Africa; to reduce stigmatisation of people suffering and living with cervical cancer.
She said the conference also had the objective to mobilise the needed resources for the development of policies, strategies and action to fight cervical cancer at national, regional and international levels.