The Sunday Mail
Tadiwa Nyatanga-Pfupa
In line with the 2018/2019 theme: Know Your Status, that encourages people to know their HIV, Cancer, TB, Diabetes and STIs status, the National AIDS Council (NAC) recently handed over 16 cervical cancer testing machines.
These machines, procured by funds raised from golf tournaments held in the past years, will be distributed to various rural district hospitals in remote parts of the country.
The machines were received by the First Lady, Amai Auxillia Mnangagwa, who also is the Ambassador for Health and Child Care. She then handed them over to the Ministry of Health and Child Care for onward distribution to the selected hospitals.
NAC was mandated by the Ministry of Health and Child Care to integrate cancer into the HIV response as 60% of all new cancer cases are related to HIV. The organisation has therefore taken cancer on board and has been putting particular emphasis on community awareness and education as well as procurement of equipment and drugs.
Speaking at the handover ceremony held in Harare, Amai Mnangagwa commended NAC for the noble initiative of integrating cancer into the response to HIV.
“National statistics have shown that cases of cancer are rising every year and that cervical cancer constitutes 35% of all cases. In addition to cervical cancer, women are affected more by breast cancer, Kaposi sarcoma, and others in that order,” she said.
Amai Mnangagwa went on to applaud NAC for playing a key role in providing needed services particularly the procurement of relevant cervical cancer screening equipment to bridge the access gap in rural areas.
Rural hospitals do not have specialist screening equipment and this compels women to walk long distances. A lot of women usually hesitate to walk these long distances and usually fail to get money for transport to the nearest hospital that can offer them cancer screening services.
The First Lady emphasised on the need for early diagnosis and treatment of cancer as a way of managing it.
“Without access to screening, early diagnosis, treatment, palliative care, and pain relief, more women die in silence and we all should combine our efforts to address these gaps,”.
Minister Of Health and Child Care, Dr Obadiah Moyo thanked NAC for the golf tournament resource mobilisation strategy, through which the funds to procure these machines were raised.
“While we applaud this, we require more initiatives that can increase the resource purse to effectively tame cancer and other non-communicable diseases,” he said.
The Truscreen machines will compliment already available national services, while also expanding health care as they have multi-purpose capabilities such as screening and management of pregnancy, heart health and others.
The cancer machines were bought with support from New Avakash, Medirite Distribution, PSMI, FBC, Agribank, CBZ, POSB and Southern Skies.
National AIDS Council has been supporting the procurement of laboratory diagnostic reagents and anticancer drugs worth over USD $1 million per year for the past four years. It also bought a Mammogram machine at a cost of USD $ 500,000.00 for breast cancer screening for Mpilo Hospital in Bulawayo to address the challenges faced by women from the southern region.
This year’s fundraising golf tournament will take place on 16 & 17 October 2019 at Chapman Golf Club in Harare. Individuals and corporates who wish to be part of this worthy cause can contact NAC for more information.
