We must enlighten more people that awareness is key to fighting cancer

By Anyang’ Nyong’o

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When the Africa Cancer Foundation was launched on July 12, 2012, its mission was to promote the prevention of cancer and provide holistic solutions to people affected by cancer in Africa.

Its first line of action was to increase awareness. All those who testified on the day of the launch grading their different experiences with cancer had one thing in common: they were very ignorant of what was happening to their health prior to being made aware that they had cancer. And this ignorance was across the board, beginning with myself   and ending with little Rose Nasimiyu of the “I believe” fame.

Armed with an idea, some passion and tremendous willingness to venture into uncharted waters, the founders set out to realise their mission by working in partnership with various organisations to mobilise and strengthen relevant sectors of society for the control and management of cancer in Africa through advocacy, awareness creation and capacity building.

To date our the main partners have been the Rockefeller Foundation, the Safaricom Foundation, AstraZeneca Pharmaceutical,  Mediheal Group of Hospitals and Oracle. Likewise any time the Foundation has held screening programmes many hospitals and health facilities have been very supportive with money and in kind.

Rockefeller supported the Foundation on the work to produce seven cancer fact sheets and the national guidelines for cancer diagnosis, treatment and care in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and Management for Sciences for Health.

The same Rockefeller Foundation has offered support  to undertake research on cancer cases and diagnostic facilities in 10 counties in collaboration with the United States International University.

These counties are Uasin Gishu, Nairobi, Mombasa, Machakos, Nakuru, Nyeri, Isiolo, Kisumu, Kakamega and Baringo.

 The Mediheal Group has hosted the Foundation at MediPlaza free of charge since its inception, thanks to Dr Mishra and his team whose passions for extending medical care to the needy at costs they can afford is highly commendable.

The support by the Safaricom Foundation made it possible for the Foundation the to produce four informational books on Chemotherapy and You, Radiation and You, Taking Time to understand and cope with cancer before, during and after cancer treatment and Eating Hints that provides information and recipes to help patients meet their needs for good nutrition during cancer treatment.

Safaricom Foundation’s World of Difference Programme has supported the Foundation in starting cancer clubs in two girls’ high schools in Kenya.

These are Mary Leakey Girls’ High School and State House Road Girls’ High School.  This initiative aims to empower high school and university students with information on cancer prevention and management.

The Foundation hopes to cascade this initial experience to more high schools around the country. Eventually the aim is to establish such clubs in girls’ schools within the East African Community as well.

The Foundation’s most recent initiative is a partnership with Oracle to develop a web platform to improve access to cancer screening, diagnosis and treatment. This will be coupled with an SMS platform to target communities in rural areas. This initiative will be complemented by media talks and discussions and translation of our informational materials into major East African languages.

It, therefore, came as a really welcome news to the Foundation when proposals were made by Pan Africa Assurance to work together with the Foundation on a countywide screening programme. This initiative was launched last week when  Phillips and Sanlam joined Pan Africa Life Assurance at Sankara Hotel to donate Sh1 million in support of increasing awareness on cancer.

This initiative, dubbed “Pan Africa Life Cancer Challenge”, involves a series of  golf tournaments in support of cancer screening in the following six counties — Nyeri on April 25-26; Kisumu, May 23-24; Nakuru, June 20-21; Nyali, July 25-26; Eldoret, August 28-29; and Nairobi at Muthaiga for the Grand Finale in September.

Over 20,000 Kenyans die from cancer annually. A good number of these patients could be saved were they to be diagnosed at the early stage of their tumour growth.  But quite often they are not aware of what is happening to their bodies because cancer is basically a “quiet killer.”

As we approach the month of June which is normally dedicated as “the cancer month”, let us bring it to the attention of Kenyans that awareness is your key to fighting the war against cancer successfully.

The writer is Kisumu County Senator