NGOs collaborate to improve treatment access for cervical cancer patients

The End Cervical Cancer Nigeria Initiative (ECCNI) has partnered Aminu Magashi Garba Foundation (AMGF) and the Nigerian Cancer Society to increase access to cancer treatment in the country.

While signing the partnership, Dr Aminu Magashi Garba and Dr Ishak Lawal outlined strategies to improve access to care for cervical cancer patients through the collaboration of their respective NGOs.

Aminu Maghashi Garba Foundation is a national non profit organisation that supports humanitarian services, economic empowerment, educational and health interventions including WASH services, the foundation has pledged the initial sum of N500,000 to cater for drugs to support the cervical cancer treatment access project of ECCNI.

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Similarly, the Executive Director of ECCNI, Dr Ishak Lawal stated that ECCNI has earmarked 200,000 as seed fund to catalyze the process of improving access to treatment for cervical cancer patients, which is a response to the observation that a number of cancer patients don’t eventually get treated because of financial constraints even when diagnosed relatively early.

Cervical cancer has been described as the greatest social injustice against women in recent times, as it continues to kill women in developing countries despite the abundance of knowledge and technology to prevent and treat it.

Correcting this social injustice is the overarching goal of the WHO’s global strategy to accelerate the elimination of cervical cancer as a disease of public health significance, popularly referred to as the 90:70:90 targets. The strategy outlined 3 pillars for cervical cancer elimination; 1-HPV vaccination of eligible girls, 2-Screeninig of eligible women and 3- treatment of both pre-invasive and invasive lesions of the cervix.

However, the treatment for Cervical cancer is based on the stage of presentation. The very early stages can be treated with either surgery alone or combination of chemotherapy and radiotherapy, the operable locally advanced cases are best treated by combination of chemotherapy and radiotherapy but can be treated with a combination of chemotherapy and surgery where there are challenges accessing radiotherapy services.

The late stages are not amenable to surgery and some might only require palliative care because they presented in very advanced stage. More than 80% of cervical cancer cases are diagonised late in Nigeria with no hope for cure.

However, even those that present relatively early have challenges accessing care for various reasons. The immediate goal of the cervical cancer chemotherapy access project is therefore to support access to treatment for operable locally advanced cervical cancer patients, that are not able to afford the cost of combination of chemotherapy and surgery.

The concept will pilot in Kebbi State and best practices will be scaled up to the entire nation. A team of volunteers will be put together to manage the pilot phase and advice how best to scale up the project to cover the nation in a sustainable manner.

For enquiry about the project please contact – 08170086938, endcervicalcancerng@gmail.com .

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