First Ladies Across Africa Unite to Fight Cancer
Senator Remi Tinubu host First Ladies across Africa to join forces to accelerate cancer prevention and treatment.
They are focusing on promoting early detection and treatment to reduce the disease in the continent.
The First Ladies announced their resolve to battle the disease during the third Regional Seminar on Cancer Awareness, hosted by the Nigeria’s First Lady, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, yesterday in Abuja.
The seminar, which is being attended by First Ladies from member-states of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), aims to share knowledge and mobilise resources to combat cancer, particularly breast and cervical cancer, among women.
In a statement by her spokesperson, Busola Kukoyi, Senator Tinubu emphasised the need to reverse the grim statistics of cancer prevalence in Nigeria, which has shown that 127,763 new cases and 79,542 deaths were recorded in the past year alone.
Addressing the seminar, the First Lady said while President Bola Tinubu had fully taken up the diagnostic and treatment component of cancer care, she would lead the advocacy to promote innovative approaches to its prevention and early detection.
She expressed her commitment to promoting innovative approaches to cancer prevention and early detection with a focus on reducing late presentation and improving treatment outcomes.
“My major interest is to reduce the prevalence of late presentation in order to improve treatment outcomes. Reports from various cancer registries in the country, which have been corroborated by Globocan Data reports, showed that there were 127,763 new cancer cases and 79,542 deaths within the year. Also, the prevalent cases of cancer over a period of five years in the country stood at 269,109.
