Unless urgent attention is paid to decreasing the burden of cancer, there are going to be e catastrophic results especially in Africa and parts of Asia, experts warned at a gathering in Cape Town this week.

In 2000, there were an estimated 10,4 million new cases of cancer diagnosed worldwide, 6,5 million deaths from cancer, while over 25 million people were living with cancer.

By 2030, it is projected that there will be 25,4 million new cases of cancer, 16,4 million cancer deaths annually and a staggering 75 million people living with cancer.

‘€œThe greatest effect of this increase will fall on low resource and medium resource countries where in 2000, almost half of the disease burden was from non-communicable disease,’€ Dr Peter Boyle of the International Agency for Research on Cancer told the 6th International Congress of African Organisation for Research and Training in Cancer (AORTIC) meeting in Cape Town.

Boyle warned that apart from population growth and ageing, cancer risk factors such as tobacco smoking, will add to the cancer burden in Africa.

He said a major challenge for many countries will be how to find funds to treat the large numbers of cancer that will be diagnosed in the coming years.

Boyle said that if current smoking patterns continued 150-million people would die from smoking-related cancer by 2025.

‘€œThe results are going to be quite catastrophic,’€ said Boyle.

Thirty countries in Africa and Asia had no access whatsoever to radiotherapy.

‘€œThere is not a single radiotherapy machine in these countries,’€ he said, adding that there was a global shortage of 7 000 machines.

Boyle hailed the Millennium Development Goals as ‘€œmagnificent’€ and set to bring huge benefit, but he lamented that it did not mention chronic diseases or cancer.

‘€œUnprecedented and necessary work is being done on malaria, TB and Aids, but there is an urgent need for global leadership and co-ordination (on cancer),’€ said Boyle.

Dr Anne Merriman of Hospice Africa in Uganda pointed out that Tanzania was the only African country with a government-endorsed National Cancer Control Programme.

She revealed that 80 percent of cancer cases on the continent were detected late with over a million new cases every year. Many agree that early detection would make a huge impact on the cancer burden in Africa.

In Uganda, Merriman said, 57 percent of people never saw a health worker in their lifetime. ‘€œThey die in the villages,’€ she said.

Merriman, who has been at the forefront of introducing palliative care to Uganda and enabling access to pain relief measure such as morphine, said it was critical to use the meager resources available for the greatest impact. Uganda is currently the only country in the world where nurses can prescribe morphine.

‘€œWe’€™re adding life to days, not days to life,’€ she said.

Dr Twalib Ngoma who runs the Ocean Road Cancer Institute in Dar es Salaam in Tanzania said that there had been a significant increase in Kaposi’€™s sarcoma, an AIDS-related cancer. It is now the most prevalent cancer among men and the third most prevalent among women.

Cervical cancer is still by far the most common in women, followed by cancer of the breast. A woman dies every two minutes of cervical cancer, one of the most preventable cancers.

Ngoma said it was challenging to focus on cancer in Africa despite the fact that ‘€œfour jumbo jets falling each week equal the cancer deaths per year in Africa’€.

He said Africa’€™s health systems were geared towards addressing epidemics, not chronic diseases. ‘€œWe are not set up for cancer. We need national cancer plans on the continent,’€ he said.

Several speakers have called for a global fund for cancer to be established. The conference ends on Sunday. ‘€“ Health-e News Service