‘Introduce cancer lessons at key primary school level’

TAPIWA CHIRUME

AUTHORITIES must intro­duce cancer education in primary schools as part of national efforts to raise awareness and improve health lit­eracy.

So says a concerned Cancer Association of Zimbabwe’s (CAZ) evaluation and research officer, Lovemore Makurirofa, who has also called anew for the decentralisation of treatment of the malignant dis­ease in the country.

Speaking on Thursday night on leading independent national tel­evision station 3Ktv’s popular cur­rent affairs programme, Vantage, Makurirofa also said the time had come for cancer to be treated as an emergency, just like what had hap­pened with HIV three decades ago.

Vantage — which offers diverse perspectives on a wide range of en­gaging topics that include politics, corruption, economics and women’s issues — is broadcast on the popu­lar TV station every Thursday at 8:30pm.

“We need to invest as a nation in making sure that we implement an extensive national programme on cancer education, just like what we did with HIV.

“We also need to introduce non-communicable diseases and cancer into the school curriculum right from primary level.

“And pupils should be exam­ined on those issues because cur­rently they are not being examined,” Makurirofa told 3Ktv.

“We need to make sure that we do that so that we improve the can­cer literacy of the country, and so that when we say cancer can be managed at any stage, people will understand why early detection is very important.

“Because of the many myths that abound, some people actually do not think that cancer can be man­aged at our hospitals.

“They thus go on to pursue herb­al baths and so forth, as they do not trust the treatment modalities that are offered at hospitals.

“That is the reason why some will then come for help at medical clinics when it is too late, prob­ably because then they would be in pain and would at that point have no option except to go to hospital,” Makurirofa said further.

“So, there is an urgent need for us to invest in awareness campaigns and to also improve our service pro­vision.

“It is very important that these services are accessible and afford­able so that people can actually access them wherever they are — because as long as they remain cen­tralised, people will not be keen to go and get the services,” he added.

CAZ, Makurirofa said further, remained concerned about the few centres that were treating cancer pa­tients in the country, a situation he said placed a huge burden on these facilities.

“In terms of centralisation, the Cancer Association of Zimbabwe has been talking about this for quite a long time now. This is because the issue of decentralisation is very im­portant.

“Why is it important? It is be­cause as long as the services remain centralised in urban areas, mainly in Harare and Bulawayo, what it means is that patients will have to pay extra costs to make sure that they get transport to those few treat­ment centres.

“When the patients reach those treatment centres, they will also need accommodation and food as they will be away from their usual family residences.

“All those are among the hidden costs of cancer. We normally talk of drugs that are very expensive and services that are expensive, yet all these are extra costs on top of the drugs that are already very expen­sive,” Makurirofa further told 3Ktv.

“So, decentralisation is very im­portant. We are happy that the gov­ernment has recognised this need to decentralise treatment centres, which means that it has seen the need to make sure that cancer man­agement in general is decentralised to other provinces — which is a very good and positive development.

“However, the process is still too slow. The majority of patients are still required to come to the major urban areas in Harare and Bula­wayo.

“In that vein, it is very important to understand that decentralisation — especially of radiotherapy ser­vices — is not something that can be done overnight.

“It is a process as it is technol­ogy-intensive and the installation of machines and running them to ensure that they are doing their job takes a long time.

“As the Cancer Association of Zimbabwe, we thus keep on advo­cating for that decentralisation to be speeded up.

“At the same time, we appreci­ate that at least the government has come to the realisation that decen­tralisation is key.

“In this regard, we also advocate that the resources coming from the sugar tax and all other local fund­raising initiatives should be chan­nelled towards that decentralisa­tion,” Makurirofa also said.

According to the Zimbabwe Na­tional Cancer Registry, cervical can­cer continues to contribute signifi­cantly to national cancer mortality in the country.

Among black women, it now constitutes about 41 percent of all cancer cases.

“That is very, very high indeed. A lot of the cancer cases that we are seeing in Zimbabwe are mostly cer­vical, and a lot of women are dying as a result of that cancer.

“Remember, in previous pro­grammes here on 3Ktv I said cer­vical cancer, inasmuch as it is the number-one cancer, is the most pre­ventable of all cancers.

“Because cervical cancer is con­tributing significantly to deaths in the country, we need to invest more in that area,” Makurirofa underlined further.

• In addition to being available free-to-air, 3Ktv is also carried on DStv Channel 293, with the award-winning Vantage airing every Thurs­day between 8:30pm and 9pm.