There is urgent need for enlightenment campaigns to curtail the unnecessary deaths
No fewer than 26 Nigerian women die daily as a result of cervical cancer, a radiologist, Ifeoma Okoye, said recently. “We conducted a survey and discovered that cervical cancer is the second killer cancer among women and Nigeria is also the tenth in cervical cancer death worldwide. Some 48 million women are at risk, 17, 550 women are diagnosed yearly, 9, 659 women die annually and 26 women on daily basis in Nigeria. This is alarming and most of the cases are in the developing countries like Nigeria. It, therefore, requires a proactive political commitment to fight the scourge,” she said. We cannot agree more.
Cancer of the cervix is one of the most common cancers that affect a woman’s reproductive organs. According to Dr. Marliyya Zayyan, consultant at the Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital, Zaria, all Nigerian sexually-active women are at the risk of cervical cancer. Indeed, a sexually transmitted virus is implicated in most cases of cervical cancer.
The virus called HPV, short for Human Papilloma Virus, is passed on during sexual intercourse. That perhaps explains why the disease afflicts more of those who engaged in early sex, women with multiple sexual partners, in addition to those who smoke and had their immune system weakened due to poor nutrition. According to the WHO estimates, Nigeria has a population of 40.43million women aged 15 years and above who are the risks of developing cervical cancer.
At the early stage, the disease is innocuous as it produces no signs or symptoms. According to authorities, depending on the individual, it can take between five to 30 years for the virus to mature into full-blown cancer. By that time it is too late and already life threatening. As the cancer grows, the tell-tale signs are vaginal bleeding after intercourse, between periods or after menopause. Other symptoms of the ailment are pains during intercourse and watery or bloody vaginal discharge with foul odour. At this stage, the cancer is already at an advance stage where little can be done. In most cases the affected woman dies painfully and miserably.
But cervical cancer can be prevented through screening. In many western societies for example, cases of cervical cancers had been contained drastically due to universal cancer screening. It is also curable if detected at an early stage and treatment is said to be simple and cheap. There are vaccines for the prevention of the ailment. The high casualty rate from the disease in Nigeria is more a combination of the state of our health facilities and ignorance. Most Nigerian hospitals and medical centres lack the diagnostic capacity to quickly detect and treat cancer infections. On the other hand most of the affected women are ignorant low income earners such that even when they live within range of such institutions a good number of them do not have the means to access the medical facilities.
That is why we call on the authorities to embark on campaigns to raise the level of public awareness of this leading killer among women, particularly rural women. The burden of cancer in Nigeria is enormous. We believe that the task of saving its citizens from the scourge remains essentially with government which has to provide both the basic health facilities to combat the disease and to create the enabling environment that can facilitate the collaboration of the private sector in tackling the menace. Increased awareness and increased funding for health care initiatives – by government, donor agencies, and development partners – would likely curtail the incidence of this silent killer. Indeed, the government should incorporate cervical cancer screening programme into the primary health care while treatment should be subsidised. The vaccine for cervical cancer should also be incorporated into the immunisation plan.
