Blog 2: Cancer is Killing Africa!

As most people know, diseases such as HIV, malaria, and tuberculosis have been pushing up the death rate in African countries for years. But according to this article by  Dr. Kingsley Ikenna Ndoh, recent studies have shown that cancer is actually killing more African people than these three other three diseases combined?! In fact, a few of Africa's leaders have died from cancer in recent years which has brought a new awareness to the disease.
Since cancer is not a communicable disease, it does not effect just one area of the world. But unlike a lot of the world, Africa is lacking in cancer specialists. People is countries such as Nigeria, are seeking medical care India. But, not everyone can afford to go over seas for medical treatment. Medical assistance is growing in Uganda, slowly but surely as their Cancer institute has gained ten oncologists in the past few years.

Obviously, since cancer is a biological problem, it is not the social problem in this article. The real social problem in this article is that there isn't enough medical assistance to tend to the needs of the African people with cancer. I think this correlates with social problem of poverty that lies in the majority of African countries. Without money for education, doctors and cancer specialists won't be made to serve the African people. A lot of the medical attention that these countries will receive will be from doctors or missionaries from other countries. This means that the majority of people in Africa have no choice but to let their cancer run it coarse without a fight.
Towards the end of this article, the author says "(Africa) should start with a strong political will by its leaders to budget more funds to non communicable diseases, train health workers in field of oncology (cancer), develop national policies/guidelines on cancer prevention and treatments, and fund national cancer registries and cancer research and ultimately invest in specialized cancer centers." Although I know that it is not that easy, I couldn't agree more with this statement. African countries are already at risks for so many avoidable causes of death, I would hate for cancer to continue to be the leading disease in this continent when treatment exists.

http://www.thenewsnest.com/cancer-africas-ticking-time-bomb/

Emma Starnes, 7:48 2/7/2013