Zimbabwe Records an Upward Trend in the Cancer Burden

By Joyce Mukucha

Cancer ranks as a leading cause of death and an important barrier to increasing life expectancy in every country of the world.

According to estimates from the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2019, cancer is the first or second leading cause of death before the age of 70 years in 112 of 183 countries and ranks third or fourth in a further 23 countries.

Cancer’s rising prominence as a leading cause of death partly reflects marked declines in mortality rates of stroke and coronary heart disease, relative to cancer, in many countries.

Zimbabwe is continuing to record increased new cancer cases every year resulting in increased cancer deaths as well.

In an interview with Spiked Online Media, Cancer Association of Zimbabwe (CAZ) Information, Research and Evaluation Officer, Lovemore Makurirofa said Zimbabwe was recording an upward trend in the cancer burden.

He highlighted that according to the Zimbabwe National Cancer Registry 2020, about 7 659 new cancer cases were recorded in 2017 and about 2 804 deaths were recorded.

“Cancer cases are increasing in Zimbabwe every year and cancer deaths are also increasing every year. This means that the burden of cancer incidence and mortality are rapidly growing in the country,” said Makurirofa.

Pertaining to cancer treatment services, Makurirofa highlighted that the majority were still struggling to access the services due to the centralization of cancer treatment centres as well as the high cost of treatment services.

“Cancer treatment services are not yet readily accessible to the majority of the population because they are still centralised for example here in Harare and maybe in Bulawayo. So that centralisation means that people are supposed to travel to the treatment centers and the traveling costs be might be a bit high.

“Also the treatment cost is still high and a lot of ordinary people cannot afford the treatment cost so we can not say cancer treatment services are readily available, they are still centralised and expensive. Only those with few resources and maybe those on medical aid can access these services,” he said.

Makurirofa pointed out that CAZ was making concerted efforts in as much as extending support to those battling with cancer is concerned though the organisation was facing a challenge of inadequate resources due to more demand.

“The Cancer Association of Zimbabwe offers quite a number of services but however, the support that we offer these days you find out that there is overwhelming demand from the population so we end up having resource constraints in supporting the patients.

“But the few who are screened and whom we get through the government hospitals and those whom we assist, we have what we call a medical fund where we just support the cancer patients with drugs. Those who want basic cancer drugs, they can also be assisted with CAZ but as I mentioned earlier due to dwindling we don’t afford to assist anyone, we assist those who come through the government health institutions and we also assess them to further find out if they really need to be assisted or not. So generally that is our support.”

In an effort to support the cancer patients, Makurirofa pointed out that through support groups, CAZ was working tirelessly to ensure that the patients cope with diagnosis and treatment which also accommodate other patients scattered around Zimbabwe.

“In order for cancer patients to cope with the diagnosis, to cope with cancer and the treatment itself, we also have support groups.

“So we administer a number of support groups here at CAZ. Patients from across the country are free to join. We also have online support groups where they can join WhatsApp groups so that they can chat as cancer patients and interact with our nurse counsellors.”

Articulating on the field of breast cancer, and the challenges, he said ignorance about breast cancer was resulting in delayed cancer screenings, treatments which then lead to increased cancer deaths.

“The challenge in the breast cancer field is that a lot of people are not aware of breast cancer and as a result, they may decide not to be treated early so it’s really a challenge.

“We expect all stakeholders to work together so that the treatment that we are administering from the cancer institution is acceptable and to ensure that a lot of people go for it. Currently, it’s really a challenge as we are seeing a lot of people for example deciding not to go for surgery because they don’t want their breast to be removed but later they will come with advanced disease.

“We also encourage the husband and relatives to encourage that if the doctor said the breast should be removed, it should be removed and there are reasons to why that should be done.”

Concerning the dissemination of breast cancer information, Makurirofa told this publication that CAZ makes sure that it is disseminated to both women and men reiterating that men should also join the breast cancer awareness campaigns.

Leaving the message to Zimbabwe, Makurirofa emphasised the need to work in solidarity in preventing and fighting the scourge.

He stressed that the cancer burden can also be reduced through early detection of cancer and appropriate treatment and care of patients who develop cancer indicating that many cancers, particularly breast cancer have a high chance of cure if diagnosed early and treated appropriately.

“The message that I want to leave to Zimbabwe is that breast cancer is not beyond us, all we need is to work together so that we disseminate as much information as possible across the communities and also we take preventive measures such as doing breast self-examination.

“It is also important that we live healthily, we eat healthy diets, we do exercises, we avoid tobacco use. That way we will be able to prevent breast cancer and if we happen to have breast cancer it is also important that we seek opinions from trained people and commence treatment as early as possible because breast cancer can be treated if it is detected early.”