February 4, 2022: Rwanda has joined the International Community to celebrate the World Cancer Day. This year’s theme, ‘’Close the care gap”, aims to raise awareness of the general public about the signs and symptoms of cancer to ensure early detection and treatment.
World Cancer Day was declared as a “global uniting initiative" by the Union of International Cancer Control (UICC). Cancer diseases are among the leading causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide, with approximately 18, 1 million new cases and 9.6 million cancer related deaths estimates in 2018. In Rwanda, Current estimates of cancer burden are 1,0704 newcancer cases and 7,662 deaths a year (Globocan 2018).
Breast, cervix uteri, prostate, stomach and liver cancers are the most prevalent in Rwanda.
Rwanda is committed to make investment to ensure its citizens have access to care and treatment of cancer. Rwanda biomedical centre calls upon the population to go for early diagnosis of cancer.
The Acting Director of Cancer Prevention and Treatment Unit in RBC, Mr. Marc Hagenimana, who represented RBC at the event urges Rwandans to go for regular checkup for early detection of cancer.
‘‘As cancer demonstrates no symptoms in its early stage, we call upon all Rwandans to go for medical checkup, emphasis is put on those who are above 35 years old.” Said Mr. Hagenimana.
The main gaps for cancer control in Rwanda include poor awareness of the general population about cancers risk factors, prevention, early detection and treatment, insufficient diagnostic capacity, limited treatment options as well as limited access to cancer prevention and treatment services.
Despite these challenges, the Government of Rwanda has made significant progress to reverse the burden of cancer in Rwanda. This is being achieved through improving awareness of general population on prevention of cancer risk factors, scaling up cervical cancer screening and breast cancer early detection, upgrading diagnostic capacities through the use of automated biopsy processing machines and improving treatment capacity.
A number of women survived breast cancer and advocate for more awareness. A case in fosu is Mrs. Nsabimana Oda, a mother of 60 years, a client of Pink Wellness House in Nyarugunga sector, Kicukiro district, where cancer survivors are brought together to guarantee self-acceptance and create some projects to ensure their well-being and financial stability.
“I am 60 years old and it has been 19 years since I was diagnosed with breast cancer. On my way from work to home, I listened to Dr. Gatsinga on a live talk show talking about breast cancer symptoms for women above 40 years. After two days, I went for breast cancer screening and they found that I had it. I had no financial capacity for treatment; Luckily, the Government of Rwandan paid for my treatment in 2003” Nsabimana Oda said.
“My sincere gratitude goes to the Government of Rwanda for its support to my medical treatment abroad.” Added Nsabimana.
Currently, the country has the capacity to diagnose and treat cancer at 2 Cancer Centres and referral hospitals that can treat cancer within the country. The Ministry of health Established the Butaro Cancer Centre of excellence which is the first comprehensive cancer center in East Africa. In 2016, the Modern Radiotherapy and Chemotherapy cancer centre was established at Kigali Military Hospital, which already had advanced and existing cancer services in place and human resource skills required to run the centre.
The world cancer day in Rwanda was celebrated in a special period of Covid-19 pandemic and all prevention measures were respected. During this month, awareness will be done using different communication channels for the general population to uptake cervical cancer screening and breast cancer early detection in health facilities delivering these services in Rwanda. This will include also follow up of screened positive women for subsequent follow up including treatment of precancerous cervical lesions and invasive cancer.