You are here : Back > Our People > Opinions > Cancers Affecting Women
Cancers Affecting Women
| Dr Anne Reeler, CTO |
|
|||
“Cancer kills more people every year than AIDS, TB and malaria put together. Well over half a million women die each year from breast and cervical cancer alone in the poorer regions of the world. Yet these regions receive only 5% of global resources to deal with the disease. Apathy surrounds cancer in developing countries. There is a feeling that little can be done because cancer care is complex and expensive. This assumption is wrong. To help prevent cervical cancer we can do visual inspection of the cervix using acetic acid (vinegar) to find abnormal cells, which can be treated immediately with cryotherapy. These procedures require little training, little equipment, and can be carried out at very little cost in the most limited of settings. They are highly effective, and have been validated in a number of countries. Axios is also working to expand access to a life-saving cervical cancer vaccine in the poorer regions of the world. For breast cancer, we can train our health workers in clinical breast examination, which costs next to nothing and can improve dramatically women’s chances of survival, because they present for treatment at a much earlier stage of the disease. These are excellent things that countries should be doing now, but they’re not. One problem is that many women in the developing world have little understanding of cancer and what can be done about it. In Ethiopia we’ve seen women coming to hospital with tumours protruding through their breasts. Before that they’ve gone to the traditional healer; they’ve used holy water. The delay reduces our chances of helping them when they finally present at a health service. We must challenge the ignorance and the myths and create public awareness that this is a treatable disease if you catch it early enough. What we need now are pilot projects to show what can be achieved to diagnose and treat cancer in resource-limited settings, and what it costs. Axios’ breast care initiative in Ethiopia – which has created a center of excellence and referral that has served over 4,000 women to date – is one such project. We need many more: with concrete evidence of what works we can say to the donor community, “Now we need the funds to scale up.” We need many more voices calling for action, too. We need leaders to tell the world how big this problem is. We need cancer activists, and patients who will stand up and tell their stories. And we need the medical establishment to start focussing on what they can do, rather than what is impossible. A huge political movement around HIV/AIDS spurred the international donor community and led eventually to the creation of the Global Fund for AIDS, TB and malaria. We need a similar groundswell of popular support for cancer care so that we can garner the resources to address this dire disease also.” |
||||
| Visit our Case Studies or Services sections to find out more | ||||
