African First Ladies commit to intensify cancer awareness

African First Ladies who attended the ninth ‘Stop Cervical, Breast and Prostate’ (SCCA) Conference in Nairobi, Kenya, from July 19 to 21, 2015 have committed to intensify awareness and efforts towards halting and reducing the incidence of cancer by 2030.

They also pledged to redouble their efforts to mitigate misconceptions and the stigma attached to cancer and integrate cervical, breast and prostate cancers, HIV/AIDS and maternal and child health programmes.

In a declaration issued after the conference, the African First Ladies expressed concern over the ever-increasing multiple burden of communicable and non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in the African Region and the associated disabilities, excessive and unnecessary pain as well as premature deaths, particularly for women, the poor and marginalised populations and vowed to work hard to save the situation.

The First Ladies, realising that reproductive cancers and other non-communicable diseases can be prevented and controlled mainly through healthy lifestyles, regular screening and early detection, as well as appropriate and timely treatment, especially in the case of breast cancer, also committed themselves to create awareness of the diseases.

Address cancers

The declaration said the First Ladies reaffirmed their previous commitments aimed at halting and reducing the burden of cervical, breast and prostate cancers, indicating that they would promote the development, sustainability and implementation of evidence-based health policies and programmes through an integrated health systems approach that is focused on assuring adequate human, technical and financial resources to achieve universal health coverage to prevent and control these cancers in order to reduce suffering and premature death.

Advocacy

Furthermore, they will advocate innovative public-private partnerships in ensuring accelerated access to quality health services for the promotion of healthy lifestyles, prevention, early detection, treatment, care and palliative care for cervical, breast and prostate cancer patients in Africa.

The First Ladies would also advocate initiatives on price reduction to support affordability and availability of essential medicines, vaccines and technologies while maintaining a high quality for prevention and management of cervical, breast and prostate cancers.

Partnerships

In the area of cancer prevention and control awareness, the First Ladies pledged to promote in partnership with community, religious and academic institutions, patients support groups, civil society organisations and the media and also mobilise political and community support to strengthen linkages between cancer and HIV programmes to achieve zero AIDS deaths, zero transmission of HIV from mother to child and zero new HIV infections among adolescents and young women.

In addition, they will support the efforts of ‘our Governments to enhance the participation of African research institutes, universities, civil society, private sector, bilateral and multilateral partners to support cancer prevention and management programmes in Africa and intensify awareness and efforts towards halting and reducing the burden of cancer by 2030’, the declaration said.