Associate Professor of Gynae-Oncology, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, College of Medical Sciences, Gombe State University, Dr Halima Usman, has identified poor awareness, inadequate tools, manpower shortages, and insufficient funding as major challenges impeding cancer treatment, especially cervical cancer.
Speaking on Tuesday during an engagement organised by the Medical Women’s Association of Nigeria (MWAN) in partnership with the North-East Development Commission (NEDC), with the theme “Every Story is Unique, Every Journey Matters”, Usman lamented the scourge of cervical cancer, saying that with adequate awareness, mortality could be significantly reduced.
She called for improved public enlightenment to help reduce the prevalence, noting that “most of these women don’t know. If most of their husbands knew, then the modalities available… but they don’t know it exists. When the policy makers know the burden, then they can channel the necessary facilities, infrastructure, and funding to provide some of the needs.
“We need adequate manpower and tools to work with. Even as we don’t have senior consultants, training and retraining of some of the lower manpower cadre can go a long way in tackling this because they are the ones in the rural areas. If they are trained to do the detection, they can do that and facilitate referrals.”
The Senior Consultant at the Federal Teaching Hospital (FTH), Gombe, added,
“As of 2021, when we did population-based screening, we found out that out of 1,000 women, we had 222 women harbouring precancerous lesions for this cancer. These are lesions that were not treated but left to progress — if they progress, they can culminate into cervical cancer.
“It’s the second most common gynecological cancer; it’s second only to breast cancer, with the highest incidence in women. Over 70 percent of cancer cases we see in FTH Gombe are cervical; the rest are ovarian and fallopian tube cancers. But the pain is that it’s preventable.”
She continued saying, “Gombe is a referral centre, especially with the Federal Government’s initiative of the Cancer Health Fund, which has been in place since 2022. Gombe is one of six centres benefiting from the fund. Because of this, we see a lot of referrals from all the northeastern states.
“From statistics, once I sit in the clinic, I see about seven new cases every week — if you multiply that by 52, that’s a lot. Most of these women are coming from remote rural areas. They have not heard of cervical cancer, not to talk of what to do.”
A member of the West African College of Surgeons, Dr Gift Bawa, decried the global burden of breast cancer, saying, “It’s the most common cancer among women globally. The incidence is alarming, especially in high-income countries compared to low and medium-income countries. However, when it comes to mortality rate, it’s the reverse.”
Bawa, a Senior Registrar, Department of Surgery, FTH Gombe, urged government to intensify efforts, adding that, “they can collaborate and partner with non-governmental organisations and people from high-income countries to tackle this menace. The prevalence of breast cancer is 54 in 100,000 women; for every 100,000 women, 54 of them have breast cancer, based on available 2022 data.”
MWAN’s representative, Dr Hauwa Adamu, said the association, in collaboration with the NEDC, organised the awareness campaign for girls and women in the state on breast and cervical cancers.
“We want them to know how important cervical and breast cancers are. Early diagnosis leads to early treatment and cure at the end. We want them to do the screening to know whether or not they are positive. Starting from Wednesday, we are targeting between 300 and 500 people for screening, which is free of charge,” Adamu added.
