Cancer: Funds increase can save lives in SADC

Lazarus Sauti

Cancer in the Southern African Development Community (SADC), like in other low- and medium-income countries is worse than Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), Malaria and Tuberculosis (TB). This means that the region is at crossroads in the face of rising cancer cases.

“Cancer kills more people in poor countries than AIDS, malaria and TB combined,” agrees the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) – the specialised cancer agency of the World Health Organisation (WHO).

In Zimbabwe, for example, an estimated 6 000 cancer cases and approximately 1 700 deaths were recorded in 2012, indicating a notable rise from the previous year, according to the latest cancer registry.

Despite the fact that cancer is preventable and can be treated when detected early, current national cancer statistics in Namibia indicate that the number of cancer patients are alarming. According to cancer statistics from IARC GlobalCan (2012), 1 300 people in Namibia are newly diagnosed with cancer per year and 800 people die from the disease per year.

In South Africa, 47 000 people died of cancer in 2012, according to WHO – a specialised agency of the United Nations that is concerned with international public health.

Further and according IARC, low- and middle-income countries accounted for 57 per cent of the 14 million people diagnosed with cancer worldwide in 2012 – but 65 per cent of the deaths.

Professor Tezer Kutluk, President of the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC) – a membership based non-governmental organisation that exists to help the global health community accelerate the fight against cancer, concurs: “More than eight million people a year die from cancer of which more than 60 per cent of those deaths occurred in low- and middle-income countries, the majority in the middle-income segment.”

The region and its leaders have failed to recognise cancer as a high priority health problem despite millions of people succumbing to the disease, to say the words of Menzisi Thabane, private oncologist in South Africa’s Eastern Cape Province.

The burden of cancer, unfortunately as asserted by IARC, is falling increasingly heavily on the poor, and the rise in the number of cases of cancer is due to ageing populations and the increasing adoption of risk behaviour such as consumption of unhealthy diets, lack of physical exercise, harmful use of alcohol and tobacco use.

Also, most Southern African countries have no trained oncologists, let alone treatment centres. According to Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Health and Child Care, the country only has four oncologists catering to over 7 000cancer patients nationwide. “The shortage of cancer doctors stands as an impediment to comprehensive treatment and care of cancer patients here,” said Prosper Chonzi, director of Health Services in Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital.

Lack of a proper health financing policy along with a framework to pool resources together has also largely contributed to the poor state of cancer treatment the health delivery system in the region.

For instance, access to cost effective solutions such as vaccination, regular cancer screening, and proven therapies is limited. As a result, poor cancer sufferers are not only more likely to die, but more likely to suffer pain and financial distress.

As most SADC countries are in the midst of fighting cancer, there is need for the regional grouping to increase cancer funding.

Funding is very critical, especially considering that most SADC citizens live in rural areas where access to cancer as well as other medical care is very limited.

On World Cancer Day 2015, leading global public health experts from UICC also agreed that millions of lives can be saved through affordable increases in the investment into cancer services throughout the world.

According to their analysis, increased annual international community funding of US$18 billion globally could save three million lives per year by 2030 and many more in succeeding decades, through prevention, earlier detection and improved care for cancer patients.

Further, their analysis showed that increased funding will also provide pain relief to ease the deaths of millions who will die of cancer during this period.

SADC countries, collectively with other low-income countries, must, therefore, increase their health budgets if they are to combat cancer.

Headline data presented at the World Cancer Congress in December 2014 from Volume three (3) of the Diseases Control Priorities edition (DCP3) also called on middle-income countries with the means to do so to increase spending on cancer by 2-5 percent of their health budgets.

This, therefore, calls the SADC grouping not only to increase cancer funding, but also simply develop strategies to domesticate cancer funding as it is essential for member-states to have a sustainable domestic source of funding to increase access to life saving cancer treatment.

Countries within the region must also drop the dependency syndrome and unlock internal resources to fund cancer treatment initiatives.

According to the Abuja Declaration adopted in April 2001 by African Heads of State, and under Abuja target scenario, SADC countries need to invest more in health if the regional bloc is to transform the lives of its citizens. This is so because investing in health has positive impact on socio-economic transformation.

Member-states must, as a necessity, target cancer funding as a smart investment in the socio-economic development of their respective nations.