Day: February 4, 2023

More partners, including the Malawi Red Cross Society (MRCS), are pouring in support to complement the Malawian government’s efforts to contain the cholera outbreak, which has killed over 1,000 people since March 2022.

As of Feb 3 this year, the country has recorded 36,943 cases and 1,210 deaths, with 19,495 cases and 634 deaths recorded since Jan 1, representing 52.7 percent and 52.3 percent of the total number of cases and deaths recorded, respectively.

According to health authorities’ daily updates on the disease, the Malawian capital of Lilongwe has registered most of the deaths.

The Malawian government and several partners continue to step up their efforts while appealing for more assistance from the local and international community.

The MRCS, over the weekend, launched a campaign aimed at sourcing 5.5 million US dollars from its various partners to help in the fight against the cholera outbreak.

MRCS President Innocent Majiya told journalists that although his organization’s volunteers have been on the ground assisting in the fight, “more support is still needed to contain the disease fully.”

Recently, the MRCS also donated cholera management and preventive materials worth 87,600 U.S. dollars to Malawi’s Ministry of Health.

The Malawian government has been appealing to the public and private sectors to support the country in fighting the worst-ever cholera outbreak, and the response has so far been positive, according to health authorities.

In April and November 2022, the United Nations Children’s Fund and the World Health Organization (WHO) supported Malawi with respective batches of 1.9 million and 2.9 million doses of Oral Cholera Vaccine (OCV).

With the outbreak affecting all the country’s districts, Malawi has run out of vaccines at the time the outbreak keeps spiking. Meanwhile, Minister of Health Khumbize Kandodo Chiponda told the local media recently that the government had “placed an order through WHO” for more OCV doses.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK

As it marks World Cancer Day, the World Health Organization is calling for action to tackle breast cancer, the most common and leading cause of cancer deaths among women.

Every year, more than 2.3 million women are diagnosed with breast cancer, and nearly 700,000 die of the disease, which disproportionately affects women living in low- and middle-income countries.

WHO officials say women who live in poorer countries are far less likely to survive breast cancer than women in richer countries.

“Breast cancer survival is 50 percent or less in many low- and middle-income countries, and greater than 90 percent for those able to receive the best care in high income countries,” says Bente Mikkelsen, director of the Noncommunicable Diseases Department at the WHO.

She says the odds are stacked against women who live in poor countries, noting many must sell their assets to pay for the treatment they need.

She notes that women also are discouraged from seeking and receiving a timely diagnosis for their condition because of the stigma attached to breast cancer.

“A woman subjected to racial and ethnic disparities will receive lower quality care and be forced to abandon treatment,” she says.

WHO data show more than 20 high income countries have successfully reduced breast cancer mortality by 40 percent since 1990. It finds five-year survival rates from breast cancer in North America and western Europe is better than 95 percent, compared to 66 percent in India and 40 percent in South Africa.

Mikkelsen says by closing the rich-poor inequity gap, some 2.5 million lives could be saved over the next two decades.

“Time is, unfortunately, not on our side. Breast cancer will be a larger public health threat for tomorrow, and the gap in care will continue to grow.

She says that “by the year 2040, more than 3 million cases and 1 million deaths are predicted to occur each year worldwide. Approximately 75 percent of these deaths will occur in low- and middle-income countries.”

Coinciding with World Cancer Day, the WHO is launching a global breast cancer initiative to tackle the looming threat. The initiative contains a series of best practices for addressing this significant public health issue.

The strategy rests on three main pillars: early-detection programs so at least 60 percent of breast cancers are diagnosed and treated as an early-stage disease; starting treatment within three months of diagnosis; managing breast cancer to ensure at least 80 percent of patients complete their recommended treatment.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the WHO, says, “Countries with weaker health systems are least able to manage the increasing burden of breast cancer … so, it must be a priority for ministries of health and governments everywhere.

“We have the tools and the knowhow to prevent breast cancer and save lives,” he says.

Benjamin Anderson, medical officer and lead of the WHO’s global breast cancer initiative, says one of the best ways to implement the initiative is through primary health care systems.

“The patient pathway is the basis of the three pillars of the global cancer initiative framework. What we anticipate is that by using awareness, education in the public, combined with professional education, it sets us up for the diagnostic processes that must take place and the treatment that has to follow.”

The World Health Organization warns failure to act now to address cancer in women, including breast cancer, will have serious intergenerational consequences.

It cites a study by the International Agency for Research on Cancer that reported that because of “the estimated 4.4 million women who died from cancer in 2020, about 1 million children became maternal orphans in that year,” 25 percent of which was due to breast cancer.

Mikkelsen observes, “the children whose mothers die from cancer experience health and educational disadvantages throughout their lives.”

WHO officials acknowledge the cost of drugs to treat breast cancer could be a matter of life or death. It notes the price of certain oral drugs is less than $1, while others range from $9,000 to $10,000.

As many countries are unable to negotiate prices, they say the WHO is working to increase the availability and affordability of breast cancer medication.

Source: Voice of America

The World Health Organization (WHO) has released a new Global Breast Cancer Initiative Framework providing a roadmap to attain the targets to save 2.5 million lives from breast cancer by 2040.

The new Framework launched ahead of the World Cancer Day campaign marked Saturday, recommends to countries implement the three pillars of health promotion for early detection, timely diagnosis and comprehensive management of breast cancer to reach the targets.

There are more than 2.3 million cases of breast cancer that occur each year, which make it the most common cancer among adults.

In 95% of countries, breast cancer is the first or second leading cause of female cancer deaths.

Yet, survival from breast cancer is widely inequitable between and within countries; nearly 80% of deaths from breast and cervical cancer occur in low- and middle-income countries.

“Countries with weaker health systems are least able to manage the increasing burden of breast cancer. It places a tremendous strain on individuals, families, communities, health systems, and economies, so it must be a priority for ministries of health and governments everywhere,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of WHO.

“We have the tools and the know-how to prevent breast cancer and save lives. WHO is supporting more than 70 countries, particularly low- and middle-income countries, to detect breast cancer earlier, diagnose it faster, treat it better and give everyone with breast cancer the hope of a cancer-free future.”

Cancer in women, including breast cancer, leave a devastating impact on the next generation.

A 2020 study by the International Agency for Research on Cancer suggests that with an estimated 4.4 million women dying of cancer in 2020, nearly 1 million children were orphaned by cancer, 25% of which were due to breast cancer.

Children who lose their mothers to cancer experience health and educational disadvantages throughout their lives, triggering generational, chronic social disruption and financial harm in many cases.

“Countries need to ensure that this framework engages and integrates into primary health care. This effort would not only support health promotion but also empower women to seek and receive health care throughout the life cycle,” says Dr Bente Mikkelsen, WHO Director for Noncommunicable Diseases.

“With effective and sustainable primary health care, we can really see a pathway to universal health coverage.”

The newly published framework leverages proven strategies to design country-specific, resource-appropriate, health systems for the delivery of breast-cancer care in low- and middle-income settings.

It outlines three pillars of action with specific key performance indicators: Recommending countries focus on breast cancer early-detection programmes so that at least 60% of breast cancers are diagnosed and treated as an early-stage disease. Diagnosing breast cancer within 60 days of the initial presentation can improve breast cancer outcomes. Treatment should start within three months of the first presentation. Managing breast cancer so that at least 80% of patients complete their recommended treatment.

Accelerating the implementation of WHO’s Global Breast Cancer Initiative has the potential to avert not only millions of avoidable female cancer deaths but also the associated, intergenerational consequences of these deaths.

In 2017, the World Health Assembly passed the Resolution of Cancer prevention and control in the context of an integrated approach.

Since 2018, WHO has developed integrated initiatives in women’s and children’s cancers, calling also for the elimination of cervical cancer and a doubling of childhood cancer survival.

Taken together, these initiatives can revert the generational harm from cancers and save more than a million lives in the next ten years.

WHO calls on governments, development partners, industries and individuals to take their part to close the care gap and end the generational harms of cancer.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK

A World Health Organization doctor abducted in Mali has been freed, authorities told Agence France-Presse on Saturday.

“Diawara Mahamadou, a WHO support doctor with the regional health directorate in Menaka, was released on February 2,” said a health official in the town of Menaka in northern Mali. “He is doing well.”

A regional official said the WHO medic had been freed not far from Gao city, further west. “He told us he was not mistreated,” he said.

It was unclear who had taken the doctor hostage, he said.

Since 2012, Mali has been in the grip of a serious security crisis and violence. Kidnappings of foreigners and Malians is common.

Motives range from ransom demands to acts of reprisal.

The WHO doctor, who has worked for the organization in Menaka since early 2020, providing medical care to often isolated communities at risk of insecurity and violence.

In October 2022, the WHO quoted the surgeon as saying: “A patient is a patient… Our job is to go where people are and need health care.”

After several years in Gao, also in eastern Mali, the doctor asked to be assigned to Menaka, near the border with Niger, where more than 25,500 displaced Malians lived as of last October.

They were located across six sites in precarious conditions and with limited access to health care.

Source: Voice of America