Cancer: Stakeholders call for more equipment

AS part of measures to address the treatment of cancer in Nigeria, stakeholders in Lagos stated the need for more medical linear accelerators (LINAC) if Nigeria is to contain the rising cases of cancer in the country.

Speaking at the Varian Oncology Summit in Lagos, the Regional Sales Manager (West and East Africa) for Varian Medical System, Ansu Dukuray, said the organisation is working on giving the right attention to cancer in Nigeria because of the number of people who die of the disease daily.

According to the statistics, 100,000 people are diagnosed with cancer yearly in Nigeria, with a fatality rate of 80 per cent. This can be attributed to lack of access to treatment due to dearth of medical equipment needed to manage the disease. It was revealed that while 200 LINAC machines are needed for a country of Nigeria’s population, only six are available, with three of them operated by Varian at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH).

A LINAC is the device most commonly used for external beam radiation treatments for patients with cancer. It delivers high-energy x-rays or electrons to the region of the patient’s tumor. “In Nigeria, today, we need 200 LINACS to adequately address the treatment of cancer. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), you need one LINAC per one million people. We are engaging the public and private sector to beef up the capacity across the country,” Dukuray said.

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Varian has equipped the cancer centre at LUTH. “Today patients are treated there. That was not the case before now,” Dukuray said. “When you look at healthcare projects in the past, you have a lot of white elephant projects where equipment are acquired and they are kept there without any maintenance contract so they work for the first six months after which the equipment is not doing anything for the patient.”

In his remarks, the CEO of TANIT, Anthony Nader, said the organisation has helped to shape the project in LUTH from feasibility to business planning. Nader revealed that the cancer building at LUTH was funded by Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA), while the equipment was funded by Varian. “The cancer centre project in LUTH is a Public Private Partnership (PPP) initiative project done in collaboration with LUTH and the NSIA. The role of TANIT was the execution of the project. We are glad to leverage this project. The project was done and delivered in record time.”