Government to incorporate vaccine for human papilloma virus, cut down cervical cancer rates

Government is to incorporate vaccine for human papilloma virus into the National Programme on Immunisation in efforts to cut down the burden of cancer.

Health minister Onyebuchi Chukwu has said the "strategy will prevent forty percent of cervical cancer," which is thought to account for 17 in 100 cases of cancer reported in women. It will also include use of hepatitis B vaccine to prevent liver cancer.

Speaking at the first day dedicated to cancer around the globe--coming after the first UN high-level meeting on noncommunicable diseases late last year, the minister said there was need to focus on preventing more deaths from cancer, which killed 7.6 million people in 2008. The World Health Organisation estimates cancer could kill some 84 million people by 2020 if preventive measures are not taken now.

Cancer currently accounts for 13 in 100 deaths around the world. In addition, one in two men and one in three women will have a diagnosis for cancer in their lifetime, according to health experts.

"For emphasis, we need to remind ourselves of the grim statistics of the morbidity arising from the cancer scourge," said the minister.

Incidence of breast cancer in Nigeria has risen 100% in the last ten years, compared with only a 25% increase in the previous decade, according to data from the Institute of Human Virology of Nigeria, and still accounts for four in every 10 cancers in women. Cancer of the ovaries account for 3.7% of cases. Cancer of the lymph nodes and skin account for the lowest incidence--at 3% and 2% respectively. In men, lymphoma accounts for 6.8% of cases while skin cancer makes up 3.8%, slightly higher than for women.

Liver cancer is the third commonest, accounting for 4%, slightly lower than 7% of cases which present with cancer of the colon and rectum. Prostate cancer is still the commonest type in men, making up 29%. Government collaboration with local and international agencies, from pharmaceutical companies to nongovernmental organisations, has led to upgrade of three cancer screening centres to "reduce the cancer burden," said Chukwu. Nigeria has also paid $9 million in counterpart funding in a technical partnership with the International Atomic Energy Agency to upgrade radiotherapy and nuclear medicine facilities in ten teaching hospitals around the country by 2015, according to the health minister.

Health activists argue that screening for cancer to be made free, as with HIV/AIDS, since cost is still a problem for even patients who seek help early. Breast scans cost thousands of naira that many cannot afford, according to Blessing Okpara, founder of Minna-based Chilloe Cancer Foundation. Head of Cancer Control Programme at the federal health ministry, Dr Patience Osinubi, said the best individuals can do is try to prevent or catch onset of cancer using free screening programmes offered periodically by government.

"If you don't come out and participate in the free cancer screening, then you really have yourself to blame," she noted.

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