NAMIBIA: First cancer screening facility to open

UNAM opens first cancer

facility facility in Katutura

Katutura children react on top of a platform that will house Namibia's first cancer screening facility in Hakahana.

By Moses Magadza

KATUTURA (7/23/14): The University of Namibia through its School of Medicine is setting up Namibia’s first diagnostic facility for breast cancer, cervical cancer and prostate cancer as concerns mount over the prevalence of these cancers in the country and elsewhere in the world.

UNAM officials are working around the clock to ensure that the facility, which is located in the largely informal settlement of Hakahana in Katutura and is one of several planned for different parts of the country, opens to the public soon.

This week builders were putting final touches to the facility, which already has some state of the art screening equipment. The facility comes in the wake of the African First Ladies’ 8th edition of the Stop Cervical, Breast and Prostate Cancer in Africa (SCCA) conference, which was organised by the Forum of African First Ladies Against Breast & Cervical Cancer and the Princess Nikky Breast Cancer Foundation.



DEVELOPMENT: People pose outside the first cancer screening facility being set up in Katutura in Windhoek

UNAM Vice Chancellor Prof Lazarus Hangula says the facility is part of a broader strategy by the national University to take services closer to the people. It will initially offer free walk-in screening services for the three cancers. The university will work with the Ministry of Health and Social Services and the Cancer Association of Namibia to do vaccination against viruses that cause cancer of the cervix.

Stressing that prevention is better than cure, Hangula expressed optimism that the new facility would bring about greater access to cancer screening services and save lives.

“The greatest challenge in dealing with cancer is to prevent it through early diagnosis. If we catch it early we can limit its spread and prolong lives,” he said in an interview.

READY: A woman next to cancer screening equipment inside the first cancer screening facility being set up in an impoverished settlement in Katutura, Windheok

Prof Peter Nyarango, the Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences and Founding Dean of the UNAM School of Medicine said UNAM would install a mammography machine, an ultrasound machine and other facilities to take digital pictures to enable diagnosis, initially for breast cancer, which kills millions of women every year in developing countries.

“A little later we will do diagnosis for other cancers. We will not be treating people at first,” Nyarango said.

With respect to breast cancer, Nyarango said UNAM was working towards using modern scientific methods to freeze cancer tumors so that they do not spread.  The university will employ a surgeon, a radiologist and a few nurses to run the Katutura screening facility. Student nurses will also be part of the team.

Expectations are that in the long run the facility would train medical students and serve qualified doctors and nurses who may require refresher courses. Nyarango said this would enable seamless roll out of screening services throughout the country. The next cancer screening facility will be in Oshakati. The process of procuring equipment for it has begun.

UNAM scientists have been conducting research around using mushrooms to prevent cancer.

Prof Philip Odonkor, the Associate Dean of the UNAM School of Medicine described the location of the screening facility in Katutura as “symbolic”.

CLOSER: A man walks towards an informal settlement in Hakahana, Katutura close to the first cancer screening facility being set up in Namibia by UNAM to take health services closer to the people.

He said apart from the fact that this would be the first such facility in Namibia, it would be located in an underprivileged community, putting paid to the global norm under which, until recently, health care has been developed around people who can afford it.

Hakahana is an impoverished informal settlement with barely running water and poor sanitary facilities. It is densely populated by people who fall into the low-income category.



Prof Philip Odonkor

Odonkor called for “education, education and education to create awareness” and said people must be assisted to know more about themselves and to determine what to do next should they detect problems.

Nyarango said the setting up of the screening facility demonstrates that the university and its School of Medicine were not “ivory towers”.

“The role of a medical school is to develop models that would help ordinary people overcome systematic limitations that jinx access to quality health care. “

With respect to prostate cancer, health experts say that every male is at risk of developing it, with the lifetime risk estimated at almost 100 percent. The risk is particularly high in there is a family history of prostate cancer. Experts recommend that every man above 35 years of age should go for regular check-up, ideally once a year.

HAPPY: A woman sits next to equipment in the first cancer screening facility being set up by UNAM in Katutura to bridge the gap between the poor and quality health services.

In a major breakthrough, medical scientists recently discovered a vaccine against the human papilloma virus (HPV) which protects against cervical cancer if administered to girls aged 12 to 13 years. While experts say it is effective, it is not yet widely administered.

Experts advocate that girls who have reached puberty should start going for regular check-ups for breast cancer. Some experts say that ideally, young girls should be trained to examine themselves for breast cancer symptoms.

-moses.magadza@gmail.com

Scientists detect rape of the world

Research uncovers pollution from mining

§  Arsenic and lead main pollutants

§  Hundreds of mines in SADC abandoned

§  Some mining companies antagonistic, uncooperative

§  Countless children in harm’s way

§  Poor people bear the brunt

§  WHO guidelines exceeded

By *Moses Magadza

WINDHOEK- Scientists are calling for stricter enforcement of regulations compelling mining companies across Africa to clean up the poisonous mess they create while mining to safeguard public health.

Their recommendations follow research conducted over time in different parts of the continent including Namibia, where severe contamination to the environment from heavy metals in some mining settlements has been detected.

Research conducted since 2004 at three mines: Berg Aukus, Kombat and Tsumeb in Namibia shows that soil and some crops that were being grown near these mines had levels of metal elements that include copper, zinc, lead, mercury and arsenic higher than those stipulated by the World Health Organization (WHO).



Left to right:  Lothar Hahn (GFZ, Germany); Freeman Senzani (UNAM, Geology); Fred Kamona (UNAM, Geology) and Rainer Ellmies (BGR & Geological Survey Namibia); kneeling, L-R: Anno Gunzel (Ongopolo Mining); Bohdan Kribek (Czech Geological Survey).

The scientists who conducted this study are from the University of Namibia, the Geological Survey of Namibia and the Czech Republic in Central Europe. They have published some of their findings in reputable journals that include the African Journal of Range and Forage Science and the Journal of African Earth Sciences. More findings are set to be published soon in the Journal of Geochemical Exploration.

Professor Benjamin Mapani, who teaches geology at UNAM and is one of the researchers, says in some of the areas studied, the level of contamination to the environment was “worrying”.

 “At Berg Aukus Mine the major finding was that the soil and some crops that were being grown near the mine had levels of heavy metal contamination that exceeded the WHO guidelines by almost two times as in the case of arsenic. Lead was exceeding the guidelines by almost 40 percent,” he said in an interview.

Over the years, the WHO has developed guidelines with respect to acceptable levels of contamination in the soil by heavy metals from mining. The guidelines, which have been widely embraced, relate to places where people farm or live and where livestock graze.

Dangerous legacy

Some of the mines that were studied in Namibia were set up in the 1970s when monitoring the effects of mining on the environment was not a priority. The Berg Aukus Mine closed down in 1979 and when findings of this study were shared with the government, it relocated an agricultural college that was based there to Reitfontein in Grootfontein.

That study showed that heavy metals had contaminated crops that included carrots, spinach, cabbage and tomatoes.

HAZARD: Improper disposal of mining waste like this can endanger the health of people and animals.

Some crops do not accumulate heavy metals. They include maize, which excludes them from the seeds, confining them to the stalks which can be burnt to prevent livestock feeding on them. Rosh Pinah Mine  in //Karas Region, was also studied and is still in operation.

At Tsumeb Mine, although mining has stopped, the smelter is still operating. It gets ore from various countries that include the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zambia and Chile for processing, which makes the mine technically active. Kombat Mine, which was also studied, has closed down.

The research found that although contamination was not very serious at Kombat Mine, Rosh Pinah Mine was experiencing a serious problem of dust, which the scientists say may have an effect on the health of people that live close to the tailings.

Well-placed sources said that after findings of research done there were communicated to the mine management, watering of the dust to limit the amount of dust in the air began.

Mapani says in the case of Rosh Pinah Mine, remedial steps are easier to implement because the mine is still operating.

“At Kombat and Berg Aukus things are very difficult because the mines have ceased operating. Who is going to do what? Rehabilitation of mines is also a costly undertaking.”

At Tsumeb authorities have installed filters and new technology to reduce the amount of fumes coming out of the stocks in keeping with international standards regulating the emission of fumes. The research shows that lead contamination was most prevalent at Berg Aukus and Tsumeb, which have a combined population of approximately 25 000 people.

At Berg Aukus and Tsumeb the main problem was contamination from arsenic. To solve this, it recommends covering the affected areas with uncontaminated soil so that when children play they do not inhale contaminated soil. The other option is to relocate people from affected areas and growing certain grasses that take up the metals.  The grass can then be burnt. This was done successfully in Zimbabwe at Madziwa Mine in the late 1990s.

Major problem

Prof Percy Chimwamurombe, a microbiologist at UNAM who was also part of this study, says contamination of the environment is a very big problem in African Countries. He explains that in areas that receive high rainfall, the problem is compounded by the fact that the tailings go into the soil and are moved long distances through erosion. This problem is especially big in South Africa and in Zambia.

According to Chimwamumbe there are new innovations that are coming up as scientists deal with contamination from mining. In some countries water hyacinth has been planted to accumulate some of the heavy metals, sometimes to a point at which the metal in the plant becomes an ore body.

“The weed is then harvested, dried, burnt and the metal recovered,” he says

In Southern Africa, some scientists are revisiting the tailings to see if more metals can be recovered through further extraction.

Prof Benjamin Mapani

Mapani, who is the chairperson of the Commission on Geoscience for Environmental Management (GEM) as well as secretary general of the Geological Society of Africa, says a project involving Namibia, South Africa, Zambia, Kenya, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Cameroon has been developed to deal with contamination from mining.  Under the project, which has been running for the past four years, scientists share data and exchange notes on how to tackle the problem.

He says conducting this research has been difficult but necessary. While some mines have been cooperative, others have been very hostile, thwarting free access to some mining sites and frustrating researchers in the process. It has been relatively easy to work in Namibia, South Africa and Zambia.

On the significance of this study, Mapani says any research should be measured against its output.

“The government of Namibia was very responsive to our research results, because we worked with the environmental division of the Geological Survey of Namibia. When we showed them the results they took action.”

Many mines abandoned

There are a lot of abandoned mines in southern Africa but few studies to determine the extent to which they have messed up the environment. In some countries governments have included an after closure statement when mines are licensed to compel the mining companies to clean up the environment once the mines close. Others have gone further to require mining companies to put substantial amounts of money into a fund as surety in case they abscond.

Mapani says while there is no shortage of legislation to protect the environment and people from the effects of mining in general, implementation remains a challenge in some countries.

While this state of affairs persists, “the poor man feels the pain,” in the words of the late South African Reggae musician, Lucky Dube. This seems to be true in Africa, where research shows that the low income groups are invariably found in the contaminated areas.

Other scientists from UNAM who conducted this study are Professor Isaac Mapaure, Professor Fred Kamona and others from the Geological Society of Namibia.

*Contact: moses.magadza@gmail.com

MosesMagadza: Linking people to health services

MosesMagadza: Linking people to health services: Namibia’s first health extension programme gains momentum ·        Nearly 600 health extension workers now in five regions ·     ...

Linking people to health services

Namibia’s first health extension

programme gains momentum

·       Nearly 600 health extension workers now in five regions

·       Development partners willing to do more

·       Government pumps in money

 By Moses Magadza in Namibia

PROUD: UNICEF Namibia Rep Ms. Micaela De Soussa

WINDHOEK (July 15, 2014)- The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in Namibia has described Namibia’s first ever Health Extension Programme (HEP) as a largely successful initiative that has exceeded expectations.

The Minister of Health and Social Services Dr Richard Kamwi launched the pilot phase of the country’s Health Extension programme on April 12, 2012 in Opuwo in Kunene Region.

Financially and technically supported by UNICEF, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and other partners that include the World Health Organisation, the programme started off with only 34 Health Extension Workers (HEWs).

Part of an ambitious primary health care strategy, the programme seeks to improve health service delivery and to ensure that marginalised populations and communities are linked to health care services. Initially it aimed to reduce maternal mortality and the deaths of children under the age of five years from preventable diseases among the Himba, a community of pastoral nomads that roam the hard-to-reach Kunene with their cattle and goats in search of water and grazing.

Armed with six months of training and vital skills to save lives of women and children, the pioneering HEWs fanned out into the Kunene region, determined to make a difference.

Many people - including Hon Josua Hoebeb, the Governor of Kunene – hailed the HEP and wished the new HEWs success. However, few people believed that they would last very long. Kunene is one of the harshest regions in Namibia. Much of it mountainous, sandy, dry and has little cellphone coverage. The Himba people who were the primary beneficiaries of the HEP programme are very mobile and often retreat into the mountains with their livestock. This leaves the HEWs with no option but to follow them wherever they go.

More than a year after it was launched, Ms Micaela Marques De Soussa, the UNICEF Representative to Namibia, says the HEW has exceeded expectations. It has not only perservered, but has also grown.

In May this year 552 more HEWs graduated from five regions of Kunene, Zambezi, Kavango, Ohangwena and Omusati. In Kunene, where the programme was launched, there are now 192 HEWs.

In an interview this week De Soussa admitted that – typical of all other grand initiatives – the HEP had experienced teething problems, many of them related to logistics which were being addressed.

When the programme began there were reports of some HEWs being paid late. Investigations have revealed that the delays were largely due to the fact that the process of absorbing the HEWs onto the payroll of the MoHSS was cumbersome. It involved navigating through red tape as the process had to go through the Ministry of Finance and the Public Service Commission. However, while this was happening, development partners gave the HEWs monthly allowances. Many of them are now on the MoHSS payroll.

 These hurdles notwithstanding, De Soussa said the programme has grown and is making a difference.

 

SAFE: Himba mother and child

“We have strong evidence from the pilot programme in three remote areas of Opuwo that there is increased immunization coverage and more pregnant women are now seeking antenatal care services,” she said.

Stressing that health for all is a fundamental right, De Soussa said the HEP programme was catalysing efforts to achieve equitable access to quality health care.

“The HEWs are providing an opportunity to mitigate the disparities in communities in terms of health by being the brokers for health services for everyone including women and children,” she said.

She conceded that some of the HEWs worked under very trying conditions. She was, however, full of praise for their tenacity.

“The first major challenge the HEWs faced was distance. They had to walk and some of them had to cover catchment areas of more than 20 square kilometres.”

She said the fact that more regions had also embraced the HEP was further proof of its popularity.

“The demand for HEWs is incredible because more regions want to join in.”

She said although there had been a few drop outs as some HEWs switched to other careers, or could not cope with the harsh conditions under which they operated, the majority had remained largely committed. To alleviate the plight of the HEWs, the MoHSS is reportedly working towards providing them with rain coats and boots so that they can be better equipped.

De Soussa said monitoring and evaluation mechanisms had been built into the programme to determine its success or otherwise. The National Steering Committee (NSC) on Health Extension Work (HEW) under the MoHSS was preparing annual and three-year work plans for the HEP.

“There is a master plan that spells out detailed activities under each component namely: leadership and coordination; capacity building; service delivery; human resources and finances; supply chain management; Health information system (HIS); Monitoring and Evaluation; and research. The plan also identifies responsible parties to carry out those activities and budgetary commitments of the MoHSS and key stakeholders that include UNCEF and USAID,” she explained.

Additionally, regional steering committees had been set up in five northern regions where stakeholders oversee the HEP.

“In terms of evaluation, there is an annual review meeting planned at national level as well as quarterly meetings at regional level to review progress against set targets,” De Soussa added.

Buoyed by the success of the pilot HEP, De Soussa said UNICEF would continue to render technical and financial support to the programme. Working with USAID, UNICEF would support institutionalisation of HEP training with a focus on refresher training and introducing integrated community case management.

Starting from this July and with the support of UNICEF, WHO and other partners, the MoHSS will organise stakeholders’ meetings to garner more support for the HEP.

“Integrated refresher training will take place with the introduction of water, sanitation and hygiene interventions as well as emergency preparedness and response,” De Soussa revealed.

An additional 941 HEWs are set to be trained from September 2014 to April 2015 to cover nine regions: Omusati, Oshana, Oshikoto, Ohangwena, Kavango, Zambezi, Karas, Otjizundjupa and Hardap. Expectations are that by the end of April 2015, there would be approximately 1500 HEWs operating in Namibia to bridge the gap between health facilities and communities.

Although the HEP started with financial support from Tech Resources Limited through UNCEF Canada, the MoHSS has now fully taken over the programme, allocating approximately N$55 million to scale up the programme over three years.

Trained to ask, observe and act, HEWs have been used effectively to provide community health education to prevent morbidity and mortality a in various countries that that include Zambia, Ethiopia, Malawi, Guatemala, and Eritrea.



LOOKING OUT: A Health Extension Worker examines a Himba child in Kunene Region, Namibia

When dealing with children, for example, HEWs also look out for ear, nose and throat problems as well as other danger signs which include lice, dehydration, convulsions or fits. They check the child’s nutritional status, immunisation card and growth charts to determine whether the child is growing well and if the child is fully immunised. If not, they refer and give health promotion for the caregiver to make sure that the child is going for proper immunisation.

In an earlier interview in Omukuyu Village in Opuwo, Vemupomanda Tjivero, one of the first HEWs be trained, said: “I know what to do in cases of poisoning and shock, and how to perform resuscitation. We were taught about maternal and natal reproductive health. I know the danger signs when a woman is pregnant.”

While some observers hail the government for introducing the programme, they call for the training of more nurses to supervise the HEWs. Speaking on condition of anonymity, one observer said: “HEPs are options for countries in which money is an issue. The HEP needs to be supported by trained health workers who supervise them.”

The observer said elsewhere steps have been taken to ensure that the HEP does not become part of the government system; that “it remains a people’s or community programme. Otherwise the HEWs start demanding unsustainable perks.”

Experts say that the fundamentals of health are based on what individual citizens can do for themselves including simple things like brushing their teeth, bathing, eating right, keeping their environment clean, identifying who is vulnerable,  and seeking attention in good time when unwell.

The role of HEWs is therefore to provide survival skills and understanding related to health to individuals within communities.

-moses.magadza@gmail.com

Ends/.

 

 

MosesMagadza: Hanging hopes on new gender degree

MosesMagadza: Hanging hopes on new gender degree: Hopes dangle on new MA in Gender degree   By Moses Magadza The University of Namibia admitted its first batch of students into ...

Hanging hopes on new gender degree

Hopes dangle on new

MA in Gender degree

 By Moses Magadza

The University of Namibia admitted its first batch of students into a new Master’s degree programme in Gender and Development Studies in early 2014, kindling hopes in a country grappling with gender-related problems that include violence in which scores of women have been brutally murdered.

 The degree followed three years of meticulous planning by UNAM and other partners locally and internationally.

 The Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (FHSS) Prof. Kingo Mchombu says that for many years there were no dedicated postgraduate teaching programmes specifically on gender matters in Namibia; even less so in terms of mainstreaming gender issues for national development.

To meet this demand, the FHSS put together a team which included expertise from across UNAM. It was decided that the Department of Sociology (representing a discipline with a long history of addressing gender issues) would plan and host the new Masters in Gender and Development degree in collaboration with the Gender Unit in the Multi-disciplinary Research Centre, also at UNAM.

Ms. Immaculate Mogotsi and Dr Tom Fox eventually became the chief joint coordinators, inspirationally supported by the Dean.

On the timing of the programme, Fox says it was appropriate given that gender issues were among the most pressing and important in contemporary Namibia. Gender-based violence against women has become a big social problem in Namibia and recently Founding President Sam Nujoma called for an end to it, saying men who kill women should be “buried alive”. And in March this year the country observed a national day of prayer as concerns grew over the problem.

Says Fox: “The programme certainly addresses gender violence and male power, but is also concerned with clarifying its causes; while also looking at how the empowerment of women and sexual minorities can be addressed and mainstreamed in national development policies.”

In Namibia and other parts of the world women also suffer forms of physical and psychological abuse, but generally fail to realise their life aspirations, career hopes or personal development in a society that traditionally favours male opportunity.

Fox explains that providing women with social and economic conditions in which they can obtain economic independence, career opportunity, and equitable social status underlined and guaranteed by legal and civil rights, was at the heart of this new Master’s degree.

The MA in Gender & Development combines the theory and practice of gender policy. Bodies like the Ministry of Gender and other ministries tend to be familiar with the practice, but weaker in conceptualization and critical analysis of Namibian gender issues.

Fox says poorly conceptualized or insufficiently analysed gender issues might result in underdeveloped policies. Accordingly, the new MA has the practical purpose of helping to improve national gender policy, with academic expertise directly informing gender mainstreaming practice.

“The ultimate goal is that the MA will gradually produce a body of gender experts both in government and in the society with better capacity to effectively promote gender equality and equity effectively and measurably. As a long-term goal, women in the Namibian society will be the agents and recipients of difference and change.”

In developing this programme UNAM looked closely at already established gender programmes at other universities and institutes.

“The task of UNAM and its Namibian stakeholders was to ‘Namibianise’ the MA programme, and make it relevant to the country.”

Admission to the programme was highly competitive. In all, 74 people applied. In the end, UNAM admitted 18, in line with staffing and other logistical issues. Applicants working in government or the private sector directly with gender issues were given priority, although applicants with a general interest in gender were not excluded.

Three professors and six doctors are teaching the new MA, assisted by other staff members with Masters Degrees.

“We have a strong and committed team who want our new MA to be as successful and relevant as possible. There is a lot of good chemistry between all of us,” Fox says.

In support of the new programme, the office of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Ministry of Gender Affairs have been instrumental in funding it. The School of Women and Gender Studies at Makerere University, Uganda was also involved.

Expectations are running high. Speaking at the launch of the programme recently, Ms Patricia Boyce-Diaz, the Deputy Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Gender, Youth and Development, said Namibia faced a critical shortage of gender experts and her ministry was “very delighted” that UNAM launched this degree.

“We are actually looking forward to the first graduates from this programme to come and strengthen our ministry,” she said to beaming smiles from the first intake of pioneering students on the day of the MA’s official launch, adding that issues of gender equality and equity were complex, requiring qualified people to deal with them. She pledged to use her influence to ensure that those of the students from her ministry who had complained that their supervisors were not releasing them to attend tutorials were allowed to do so.

Ms Abigail Noko, the Human Rights Officer in the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights at the United Nations in Geneva who also attended the launch, said she hoped that the new programme would develop human resources key to solving many of the gender problems that include “gender stereotyping”, which she said was an emerging big issue.



Mr Ndumba Kamwanyah: "We have outsourced parenting."

However, not everyone is dancing on the tips of their toes and waving their hats in the air. UNAM Social Work lecturer and well-known social commentator Mr Ndumba Kamwanyah, says the programme should have come much earlier and stresses that dealing with the “epidemic of gender violence” and other gender problems facing Namibia would  require more than developing academic programmes.

“Gender violence in this country is not a new phenomenon; it has been here even before independence. We should have started to tackle it a long time ago. Waiting so long says something about the priority that we have put on gender issues as a nation. We need to find out why our young men are killing their partners,” Kamwanyah says.

He says gender roles are shifting with more women becoming independent and assertive. The prolific columnist calls for a paradigm shift on the concept of manhood “so that rather than raise ‘macho’ men and ‘submissive’ serving women, we raise human beings who respect and value each other.”

Calling for multi-disciplinary and multi-sectorial approaches to gender issues, Kamwanyah believes that globalisation has weakened the family – the primary agent of socialisation.

“We have a huge problem in that parenting has been outsourced to the schools, the media and other agents of socialisation. We need to strengthen families and our communities,” he says.

Ends/. 

MosesMagadza: Of cancer and late diagnosis

MosesMagadza: Of cancer and late diagnosis: Experts: early diagnosis key to surviving cancer   Experts say women must be regularly screened for breast and cervical cancer .   ...

Of cancer and late diagnosis

Experts: early diagnosis key to surviving cancer

 Experts say women must be regularly screened for breast and cervical cancer.

 

By Moses Magadza

Maybe (not his real name) contorts his face into a grimace of exasperation and pain when he recounts the last few months of his late mother-in-law’s life.

“She died from cancer of the breast. Her niece came to visit her one day because she (the niece) had been told at the local clinic that a lump in her breast could be cancer. She was therefore referred to Windhoek,” Maybe says during a recent interview.

Upon learning the purpose of her niece’s visit, the mother-in-law who had been moving around with a lump in her breast for a while too, decided to join the younger woman on her visit to the hospital for check-up. At the hospital, health experts confirmed the two women’s worst fears: they were suffering from breast cancer.

Said Maybe: “The long and short of it is that from the day that my mother-in-law said that there was a lump in her breast to the time that she died was no longer than six months. She was taken to South Africa. Everything possible was done; the breast was removed and chemotherapy was instituted, but she died.”

Maybe’s mother-in-law’s case is typical of the scenario that plays out in most parts of Africa where experts say late diagnosis is largely responsible for widespread mortality and morbidity among countless people suffering from breast cancer, cervical cancer and prostate cancer, the latter which affects men.

To address the problem, First Ladies of Africa are expected to meet in the Namibian capital Windhoek from the 20^th to the 22^nd of July as part of ongoing efforts to create awareness on these three cancers.

President Hifikepunye Pohamba is expected to open the conference, which will be held for the first time in Namibia. Expectations are that all First Ladies of Africa will attend. For Lady Pohamba, who will be the host First Lady, this important conference is like a swansong. It will be one of the major remaining activities that she will host in her capacity as First Lady.

Health experts say cervical cancer and cancer of the breast are growing problems in Africa.

Professor Peter Nyarango is Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences as well as Founding Dean of the University of Namibia School of Medicine. He says the major problem is that these cancers – including prostate cancer - are diagnosed late.

“Therefore, the affected women don’t benefit as much from scientific advances,” he says, adding that in other countries, medical science has advanced so much that these cancers are detected in microscopic stages and treated effectively with high level techniques.

 “In Africa, many women often self-diagnose when it is too late because often they are the only ones who first notice that there are lumps in their breasts.”

 Nyarango explained that  by the time the women detect these lumps the cancer would be out of control and even when they eventually go to hospital, they - like Maybe’s mother-in-law - die despite gallant efforts to save their lives.

Experts say breast cancer is to a large extent a silent killer with a long gestation period from the pre-cancerous stage (the stage where physicians can detect that cells are behaving abnormally) to the time that symptoms develop and treatment is started).

The same story goes for cancer of the cervix and prostate cancer, which affects men.

“People do not go for regular check-ups because they do not think they are at risk,” Nyarango says.

One man, speaking on condition he was not named, opined that apart from widespread ignorance of risk factors, costs could be preventing some people from going for routine check-up.

“Even I have not gone for my regular check-up this year because the last time I tried to make an appointment, I was told that I needed to pay consultation fee of N$1700 just for the appointment,” he confided before asking:  “How many Namibians can afford these regular check-ups?”

It appears that due to many reasons, some people go to health facilities late, by which time nothing can be done to save their lives. 

Nyarango explains that fortunately, for cervical cancer and for the first time in human history, there is a vaccine that can be given to young girls.

“This is because cervical cancer is to a large extent associated with virus infection in the cervix. Therefore, vaccination can reduce the incidence of this disease appreciably.”

The First Ladies of Africa have identified three principal cancer killers among men and women.  They have now set up a foundation to facilitate women’s ability to access early diagnostic services.

The conference that will be held in Namibia will be the 8^th one on screening for cancer of the cervix, breast and prostate. 

Well-placed sources say the immediate objective of this conference is to create awareness among women of Africa and to highlight the fact that these cancers are to a large extent preventable and treatable.

In addition to creating awareness, sources say the First Ladies also want to make services accessible. Access in terms of distance and geographical access to the nearest qualified person who can diagnose remain key challenges. Cost is also a major issue. Sometimes there are cultural barriers that prevent women and men from accessing diagnostic and treatment services.

Nyarango says in some countries diagnostic services have been rolled out and people do not have to travel long distances for services or medication. An ordinary villager can go to the nearest health facility, and even if there is nobody present who can interpret symptoms, that person can take digital pictures and send them to someone who can interpret them somewhere.

Taking the point of service nearer to the household and ensuring that there are competent people dealing with these cancers so that both men and women in need of diagnostic and medical services are treated with dignity and given quality care seems the major objective of the First Ladies’ initiative which seeks to prevent more people suffering a similar fate to that of Maybe’s mother-in-law.

The presentation of scientific papers around access, prevention, treatment and on-going research will form part of the highlights of the upcoming conference.

-moses.magadza@gmail.com