Despite lack of functional cancer machine in most major hospitals across Nigeria, the Federal Government says it is working round the clock to upgrade seven cancer centres across the country to assist people go for early detection and treatment.
Isaac Adewole, minister of health, said during an interview in Abuja that the government had advanced talks with the major global manufacturers of cancer machines for upgrade of the centres across the country.
The companies approached by the Federal Government, the minister said were: ‘Variant’ and ‘Electra,’ American and Swedish companies, respectively.
Adewole said, “What we are doing currently is that we are approaching major manufacturers of the cancer machines globally. One of them is Variant and the other is Electra. Variant is America, while Electra is Sweden. We are talking to them directly and we want to upgrade at least seven cancer centres across the country.”
The minister had also explained that there were three main ways to treating cancer – through surgery, drugs and radiotherapy.
The radiotherapyy option, the minister explained, is mostly because a lot of cancer cases are advanced, and as he observed further, that Nigerians do not report cancer cases early enough.
Speaking further, he explained that, “80 percent of our cancer cases are advanced and cannot be treated outside the country. Our people mostly prefer to wait, wait and wait, till it gets out of hand. From our observation, diagnosis is not made on time, and once you tell them this is the problem, they run away.”
On the current level of machine needed in the country, he said, “As at today, we need close to 200 machines to treat our populations, but we have seven and we are working hard to upgrade them.’’
He explained further, “Out of seven cancer machine currently installed, I think five were installed through virement. When we signed the virement agreement, we did not sign a maintenance agreement that will last for a long time. Some of them had a maintenance agreement of five years and the five years had elapsed, and this is a major problems for most of them to function optimally.”
The minister also explained that cancer could be cured, adding that, “40 percent of cancer can be cured if detected and treated early. In this regard, we could handle about 80 percent if the cases are treated early.”
Meanwhile, health experts had decried the rising case of cancer in the country, which many are already dreading as a death sentence, once a case is detected.
Available statistics have also shown that 150,000 people die annually of cancer in Nigeria, prompting health experts to insist that the Federal Government must do all within its reach to upgrade cancer centres across the country to effectively take case of Nigerians.
