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A blood cancer vaccine with 97 per cent success rate is set to hit the market in two years.
This is after the vaccine, the first of its kind, cured blood cancers in its clinical trials in mice and had almost no side effects.
Contrary to the current cancer treatment methods that involve severe chemotherapy sessions whose side effects involves loss of hair, the vaccine is said to only cause an injection area sore and some fever.
UK-based Daily Mail on March 28 reported that human clinical trials will be carried out before the end of the year before the mass roll out of the vaccine in two years.
Lymphoma, a blood cancer that interferes with the formation of lymphocytes, a type of blood cells that fights infection, has been targeted for human trials.
Other blood cancers the vaccine is expected to treat are leukemia and myeloma. Leukemia is currently the most expensive cancer to treat as it needs bone marrow transplant and can go for up to Sh10 million.
Findings by Kenyatta National Hospital and University of Nairobi specialists in 2017 revealed a strain of blood cancer chronic myeloid leukemia, that was found to occur among Kenyans earlier in life--at age 42 compared to 67 overseas.
27,000 lives
Generally, cancer is the third leading killer in the country, claiming about 27,000 lives every year with 39,000 new infections.
Breast and cervical cancer are the leading killers among women while throat and prostate dominate the cancer deaths in men.
The trial will however involve patients with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma according to Stanford Medicine Cancer Institute that developed the vaccine. The patients will also not need chemotherapy.
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