Today is being observed all over the globe as World Cancer Day (WCD). Nigeria joins the global community in marking the day aimed at raising awareness on the deadly disease and to encourage its prevention, detection and treatment.
The theme for this year’s celebration is “I am and I will”. The WCD was founded by the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC) to support the goals of the World Cancer Declaration documented in 2000. The primary goal of the WCD is to significantly reduce illness and death caused by cancer by 2020.
However, according to available statistics, 14.1m new cases were recorded in 2012 alone, while 8.2m lives were lost. By 2025, over 19m new cases are expected to be diagnosed yearly.
This projection paints a very gloomy picture and offers a slim prospect of meeting the 2020 deadline of putting the disease on the back foot. Cancer is a universal scourge. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), the disease now kills more people than HIV/ AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria combined. Nigeria records no fewer than 72,000 cancer-related deaths annually, with about 100,000 fresh cases of the disease surfacing correspondingly.
It is public knowledge that majority of cancer cases are either undertreated or underreported – many cancer victims die in silence. In our rural and semi-urban communities, afflictions of cancer are tied to witchcraft attack or other causative factors bordering on superstition.
A few years ago, cancerous afflictions were limited to the breasts (for women) and the lungs (for tobacco smokers). But this is no longer the case. Cervical cancer, leukemia (cancer of the blood), liver cancer, oral cancer, prostate cancer and colorectal cancer have become more rampant though they have high cure rates when detected early and treated according to best practices. All categories of people can be afflicted by the disease.
Even those who lead healthy or unhealthy lifestyles; those who are physically fit or out of shape; those who exercise regularly or lead a sedentary existence; vegetarians and meat lovers are not totally immune to the cancer attack.
The disease remains a deadly pandemic that has no cultural, racial, religious or age barrier. Knowledge of the causes of cancer and interventions to prevent and manage the disease is necessary. Cancer can be controlled by implementing evidence-based strategies for the prevention of the ailment, as well as early detection and management procedures.
However, it is a well known fact that some unhealthy lifestyles and treatments are damaging to the body’s immune system. The human body is designed to heal itself but unhealthy eating habits such as consumption of fried, processed, sugary, junk/fast foods, excessive intake of alcoholic drinks and beverages laden with additive contents/ preservatives and, lately, artificially ripened fruits, have been identified as enemies of the human body.
Nigerians need to be freed from the sick notion that someone must die of something someday. It is a senseless alibi to continue to indulge in such dangerous eating habits. While the war against the spread of cancer is desirable, a deliberate public enlightenment campaign must be embarked upon to educate Nigerians on the need to place more emphasis on the prevention of a disease that even has no known cure yet.
Nigeria’s participation in the annual celebration of the WCD becomes meaningless and a mere ritual if concrete steps are not taken to rein in the menace.
The last time a noticeable attempt was made at tackling the scourge was in 2010, when a bill for an act to establish the National Agency for Cancer Enlightenment, Screening and Treatment (NACEST) was sent to the National Assembly. It was the first time in decades that an attempt to get a law aimed at bringing the scourge under closer scrutiny and control had gone that far.
The legal framework was intended to create the needed platform for confronting the disease from all angles and perhaps save millions of Nigerians from preventable deaths. Unfortunately, the bill died in its infancy.
A year earlier, there seemed to be light at the end of the tunnel when former First Lady, Turai Yar’Adua, raised funds for her proposed International Cancer Centre to be sited in Abuja.
At the end of the day, about N10bn was raised. Many questioned the motive behind the exercise which they believed was intended for self-enrichment.
The cynics were proved right because the project never got off the ground even before the death of her husband about a year after the windfall. We also call on the National Assembly to revisit the moribund NACEST Bill with a view to resuscitating it.
That is one way of making the World Cancer Day commemoration in Nigeria meaningful. Until that is achieved, the killer disease remains a winner!
