UCI embarks on cancer awareness campaigns in schools

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The Uganda Cancer Institute (UCI) has embarked on a campaign of reaching out to children with messages on cancer prevention and timely treatment.

Moses Echwodu, the team leader at Uganda Child Cancer Foundation says that they have so far reached out to 155 secondary schools across the country. He says that the campaign is intended to ensure that children have basic knowledge about cancer which they can also spread to their adult counterparts.

Echwodu who is also a childhood cancer survivor says that they intend to reach one million children this year through school events such as debates and talks in addition to establishing school cancer clubs.

Dr. Joyce Balagadde Kambugu, the head of the Childhood Cancers Division at UCI said the campaign is very important because their statistics still point to about 75 percent of children with cancer not presenting to care even as they have continuously developed the capacity to be able to save 50% of the children.

Kambugu says the challenge arises from the fact that for many parents, cancer never crosses their mind and instead starts treating other things like recurrent infections and malaria.

According to research carried out by the Uganda Cancer Institute between 2009 and 2011, only 2 percent of childhood cases were being diagnosed in time for treatment then. Even though there’s no new research ten years later, Kambugu says the picture has only slightly changed.

Currently, she says most of their childhood cancer patients present with leukemia, cancers of the lymph nodes, and kidney cancer also known as wilms tumor.

Each year, Kambugu says 600 to 700 children come to the Institute and Mbarara hospital with different types of cancer. Of these, they are only able to save 50%, which is still below the WHO recommendation of having at least 60 percent of children treated to recover by 2030.

Meanwhile in the west, up to 90 percent of children who develop cancer are saved.

However, while Uganda is just 10% short of the 2030 target, Dr. Diana Atwine, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Health says Uganda is aiming to have achieved 80 percent by that time since they have come up with innovations detailed in the National Cancer Control Plan of how to get there.

She says already the country has gathered enough partners in research where the time lag between innovations in care elsewhere and adoption in the country has reduced.

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