Nigerian women deserve free cervical cancer screening – NYONG

In readiness for the World Cancer Day coming up tomorrow..i was thinking of what to write then i discovered an article, extract below:

Rot. (Dr.) Eyo Nyong is a General Medical Practitioner and Medical Adviser, Motorparts Industry. In this interview with Chioma Obinna, Nyong who is also Coordinator of the annual health programme of the Catholic Chaplaincy Centre, Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) maintaines that free screening for all Nigerian women will check the spread of cervical cancer.
Excerpts:
Cervical cancer affects that area of women’s anatomy called the cervix which is the mouth of the womb that opens up during child birth for the baby to come out. Cervical cancer is an abnormal growth of the cells of that area of the womb that grows out of proportion and then start spreading to distant areas of the body where they can cause problems. It can also affect the bladder and rectum. The cancer is associated with the human papilloma virus which is transmitted sexually. Any woman who has been previously exposed sexually is at risk of having the virus.
The virus can stay in the body without causing any problem but in concert with other environmental factors it can now become effective and start causing changes in the cervix. Some of these environmental factors that have been identified include early exposure to sexual intercourse, exposure to sex at early stage, in multiple sexual associations, multiple delivery, sometimes oral contraceptives, sometimes vitamin deficiency, etc.

Campaign

The cervical cancer campaign should be in two prone approach, the first one, is to screen all women because a woman who has been sexually exposed may be harbouring the early stages of the disease and show no symptoms. We know that it takes between 10 to 15 years after commencement for the woman to come down with cancer. It gives us a window of opportunity over this long years that if you screen a woman you were likely to pick up this early stages of the disease and at that point when it has not spread it is totally curable. That is the beauty of screening. So we are encouraging people all women should go for screening at least once in three years.

The other side of the campaign isvaccination. Earlier before now, we did not have the vaccine but now the vaccine has been developed against most of the viruses that cause the cancer, the type 16 and type 18 that are implicated. The vaccine has been developed. People that should be targeted during this programme should be girls between the ages of nine and 13, hoping that they are not yet sexually exposed. If we vaccinate them, they are protected for life. Then, any woman who has been screened and found to be negative for early stages of the cancer can also take the vaccine regardless of whether you have been sexually exposed before or not.

This is the campaign Rotary Club of Victoria Island, District 9110 is doing to be able to protect these categories of people as well as our women.

Statistics

In Nigeria we don’t have data but globally there are about 500,000 cases diagnosed every year. If about 5 per cent come from developing countries like Nigeria, then about 300,000 women are dying annually from cervical cancer. Also, 83 per cent of them comes from developing countries. In Nigeria here, the statistics is such that we have per day, about 4 to 10 women dying from this cancer.

Way forward

If the causative factor has been identified and there is a vaccine for it the campaign should be stepped up. Firstly, let us screen all women. Early detection means a better chance of out come, during treatment. The way forward is to advocate for free screening of our women as part of our public health initiative and then vaccination of the young girls people who are yet to be expose sexually.

Prevention

Unlike any other sexually transmitted disease it is not the one you can find out if you have it. But chances are that if you are able to screen all women for cervical cancer most likely you may have eight in 10 who harbour the virus because the virus can lie dormant for so many years without any symptoms.

Surge of cervical cancer

There is an increase in awareness. Many women are now willing to go to hospital for examination. So we are seeing early stages of the cancer joining the statistics but before now women with this problem were dying because they never knew.

Some of them are post menopausal women who have past the age of seeing their menses and then all of a sudden, they started noticing blood or stain and discomfort and then, they go to the hospital and they tell them it is cervical cancer at that stage, it is late. So the surge is one, increase in awareness and secondly, a lot of ignorance are still going on in the past that we couldn’t screen these women before now. We start only seeing them at the late stage because at that stage it is not curable. Unlike in Europe the incidence of cancer in developed economy have dropped because they have incorporated it into their public health system. Every woman does that almost every two years. There, they are vaccinating people there. The incidence has dropped.

Policy

It is desirable, we have to start from somewhere because prevention is better than cure. Once the cancer starts there is very little thing we could do. It is a burden to the patient, family, individual it is so enormous, and the misery. So, would we rather not have these people screened? Which is the cheapest and safest thing to do.

Rotary Campaign

We are rolling out with the vaccination of 50 girl children and free screening of 100 women today. We decided to roll out with the Catholic annual health programme because here, they have resources persons. Just this year the vaccines are available, then it is so expensive, but people cannot afford it, that is why Rotary is coming in.

Vaccination is the main issue. We are rolling out with 50 girls today when we move from here we are going to be going to schools in some areas in Lagos state to have these girls selected and vaccinated.

By Chioma OBINNA

http://www.vanguardngr.com/2010/11/nigerian-women-deserve-free-cervical-cancer-screening-nyong/