Priming Nasarawa towards successful campaigns against cancer

By Ali Abare

For Miss Felica Tsaku, 43, a single mother of 12, life hangs on the balance as she experiences excruciating pains while battling to raise six million naira to afford treatment for breast cancer

Tsaku’s predicament started in February 2022 after she was diagnosed with cancer of the breast at the Dalhatu Araf Specialist Hospital in Lafia.

“My high point in this battle is just the fact that I live in Akwanga community, and I had little funds to start the treatment immediately,” Tsaku said.

She represents hundreds of other women suffering from one form of cancer disease or the other and who reside in rural communities of Nasarawa State.

Recent statistics, indicate that from 2011 to the first quarter of 2023, 639 cases of both cervical and breast cancer were recorded at the two tertiary health facilities in Nasarawa State namely Dalhatu Araf Specialist Hospital and Federal Medical Centre Keffi.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), cancer is one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide.

The world body described cancer as the second leading cause of death globally, with the number of cases expected to rise by about 70% over the next two decades.

Cervical cancer in sub-Saharan Africa is among the highest in the world. Despite being a preventable disease, it remains one of the leading causes of cancer death in Africa.

According to available statistics, and in Nigeria, 14,943 cervical cancer cases are reported each year, with 7, 968 deaths. Nigeria has a population of 60.9 million women ages 15 years and older who are at risk of developing cervical cancer.

It’s on record that cervical cancer ranks as the second most frequent cancer among women in Nigeria and the second most frequent cancer among women between 15 and 44 years of age. About 3.5% of women in the general population are estimated to harbour cervical HPV-16/18 infection at a given time, and 66.9% of invasive cervical cancers are attributed to HPV 16 or 18.

Ishaya Amegwa, State Health Educator at the Nasarawa State Primary Healthcare Development Agency (NAPHDA), during a working group meeting of the Communication and Social Mobilization sub-committee, in Lafia recently, announced that succour is finally coming the way of women who are prone to cervical cancer age from 15 to 44 years across Nigeria and Nasarawa State in particular.

According to Amegwa, as daunting as the challenge may seem, particularly as regards bringing succour to the victims of cancer in Nasarawa State, a ray of light has appeared on the horizon.

Gavi, an international organization created in 2000 to improve access to new and underused vaccines, is coming to the rescue of girls and women prone to cancer in Nigeria.

As part of its mission to saves lives and protect people’s health by increasing equitable and sustainable use of vaccines, Gavi has helped vaccinate more than 981 million children in the world’s poorest countries, preventing more than 16.2 million future deaths.

With the support of Gavi, Nigeria plans to introduce the new cancer preventive vaccine, Human Papillomavirus (HPV) nationwide, using a phased approach to sustain the country’s focus on reducing morbidity and mortality due to high burden of cervical cancer and the weak secondary and tertiary platforms to manage and treat cases.

In September this year, Amegwa confirmed, the vaccine will be rolled out across the country as Gavi strategizes with the Federal and state governments to officially launch the programme, which will be a milestone in the quest to spread further pains and deaths among mostly women as a result of cancer.

Like similar programmes that requires buying-in especially on the side of the state governments and other critical stakeholders, there is every need for Nasarawa State to hit the ground running towards ensuring the success of the programme.

Nasarawa State has peculiar problems when considered against the backdrop that the majority of the over 2 million population of the state reside in rural areas. There is the need, therefore, to scale up the campaign to reach every nook and cranny of the state.

This is even more so considering the fact that Gavi will cascade its campaign only at the federal and state governments level, with the states left to domesticate the vaccination drive across the 13 local government and 18 development areas of the state.

Muhammad Abubakar Ibrahim, director HE&SM at the Nasarawa State Primary Healthcare Development Agency, expressed confidence that the agency under the leadership of the executive secretary, Dr Mohammed Adis, is poised to repeat the feats earlier achieved with the state recording 100% in COVID-19 immunization, with Nasarawa State emerging as the best performing state in 2022.

NPHDA evolved a winning strategy to ensure the state achieved 100% immunization coverage with COVID-19. Ibrahim is confident the agency will repeat the feat with the HPV immunization.

As part of the activities, NPHDA is organizing series of meetings with Civil Society Groups (CSOs), as well as its media partners, to evolve a working strategy ahead of the official launch of the HPV immunization programme by Gavi.

Amegwa, in the ACSM meeting, identified key challenges to be addressed ahead of the September launch.

“Most of the population is concentrated in rural areas. There is need therefore to domesticate the campaign at the grassroot, particularly across the one hundred and forty-seven electoral wards of the state,” he said.

The state health educator pointed out that with humanitarian agencies such as the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) accepting to partner with the state to take the campaign to the ward level, there is still need for government and stakeholders to take ownership of the programme.

“The UNICEF budget for the campaign at ward level is ten thousand naira per ward. With the number of wards and the population, this may not be sufficient to bring the necessary awareness to the people at the grassroot,” Amegwa added.

Recently, a nonprofit organization, Mbegir Humanitarian Initiative, staged a work against cancer in Lafia, the Nasarawa State capital, where 150 women suffering from breast cancer trekked across the city to drive home their plight.

Rahab Elisha, chief executive officer of the MHI, welcomed the initiative by Gavi, saying her organization focuses basically on education, women related medical issues, as well as projection of women social values.

“We are staging the walks in Lafia, Keffi, and Wamba to further create awareness on this very enemy of women called breast cancer,” said Elisha.

Abare, a Muck Rack journalist, writes from Lafia.