Federal Government says Nigerians, particularly cancer patients, will now save up to 50 percent of treatment cost as it launches a pioneer Chemotherapy Access Treatment (CAP) Programme to increase access to high quality essential cancer drugs and enable thousands of additional patients access care.
The Word Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that 60 percent of patients with cancer in Nigeria will die, adding that Nigeria records over 70,000 deaths due to cancer yearly.
Minister of health for state, Adeleke Mamora, while launching the CAP at the National Hospital Abuja on Tuesday, said despite the statistics by the WHO, more than half of cancer patients cannot access treatment majorly because they cannot afford it.
Mamora also said some cancer drugs were out of stock in public hospitals forcing patients to obtain them from pharmacies where the prices were out of reach, and decried the abundance of counterfeit medicines in Nigerian market, which according to him, worsens rather than improve patients’ conditions.
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To this end, he assured that the CAP, which will enable cancer patients in Nigeria access lower-priced, high quality treatment at hospitals and pharmacies and reduce the burden of out-of-pocket payments.
The minister said the CAP was a public-private partnership between the Federal Ministry of Health, Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), the American Cancer Society (ACS), Pfizer, World Wide Health Care and EMGE resources.
He informed that the medications available under the programme were of the same quality as those that would be received by patients in the US, Europe, Canada, Japan and Australia.
The programme aims at reducing the price of 16 priority and quality assured medicines by almost 50 percent in six countries in Africa, including Nigeria, Kenya, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.
The minister further explained that the programme will provide immediate payment to participating pharmaceutical companies and drug distributors to ensure sustainability of the system and stock replenishment.
“This will enable Nigeria and other African governments to double the number of patients being treated with the same resources and reduce the catastrophic expenditure for patients paying out-of-pocket by reducing complexity in the distribution prices, stabilising prices, coordinating orders, streamlining registration of products and promoting the entry of international suppliers,†he explained.
He also informed that the programme is being rolled out in seven university teaching hospitals including; Ahmadu Bello university teaching hospital, Aminu Kano teaching hospital, Lagos university teaching hospital, National hospital Abuja, Obafemi Awolowo university teaching hospital, university college hospital Ibadan and University of Nigeria teaching hospital Enugu.
Jafaru Momoh, the chief medical director of the national hospital also speaking, noted that one of the biggest problem to accessing cancer care is the cost of treatment and most cases are presented very late which has made cancer to be the leading cause of morbidity and mortality.
Momoh said the national hospital in an effort to reduce the cancer burden have expanded cancer services, conducts regular screening, have procured two Radiotherapy equipment, increased the number of consultants in oncology and thereapy radiographers amongst others.
He also informed that the hospital has secured space for an oncology pharmacy, and oncology clinic.
