Population Services (PS) Kenya in partnership with Stanbic bank, has announced that it will hold a series of cancer screening events targeting over 2500 women in various areas of the country to mark the Breast Cancer Awareness month.
Women aged 25 years and above in Nairobi, Kisumu, Kiambu, Mombasa and Nakuru will be screened for breast and cervical cancer in a bid to decrease preventable deaths through early detection.
The screening services will be taken to low income areas of Nairobi where the residents tend to stay away from hospitals due to the high cost of healthcare in the country.
From this week until the end of October, PS Kenya in partnership with Stanbic targets to screen about 300 women in each of the eight centers where the activities will take place in the 5 counties
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PS Kenya will work with the Tunza Health Network providers (a PS Kenya social franchise) to provide breast cancer screening for women while at the same time empowering them to self-screen themselves regularly. The screening will be integrated with cervical cancer screening which will adopt a “Screen and Treat model” which PS Kenya has previously used in a partnership with Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation from 2012-2016.
A visual Inspection with Acetic acid (VIA) is used to detect early changes that are visible when using a speculum to inspect the cervix with the naked eye after applying dilute (3-5%) acetic acid to it. The positive cases are then treated with a Cryotherapy Machine immediately, hence the “Screen and Treat” terminology.
This is a cheaper method for detecting early cell changes and has made screening affordable for all women above the age of 25 at an average cost of Shs. 500. Joyce Wanderi, Chief Executive Officer, PS Kenya says they will mobilize the communities around the centers where the events will take place using community health workers to raise awareness about the importance of early screening and its affordability. PS will ask those who turn up for screening to tell their relatives and friends.
Read also: Stanbic Bank Offers SMEs, Personal Banking Customers Loan Repayment Holiday Amid COVID-19 Crisis
Besides early detection, diagnosed patients will be referred to leading hospitals for better treatment.
In 2018, there were an estimated 18.1 million new cases and 9.6 million deaths globally. In Kenya, cancer is the 3rd leading cause of death after infectious and cardiovascular diseases.
Overall, breast cancer registers 5,985 new cases in Kenya, accounting for 12.5% of all new cancer cases, and 20.9% in women alone (GLOBOCAN, 2018). In the same period, it accounted for 9.2% of all cancer deaths, making it the third leading cause of all cancer deaths in the country. Available data shows that majority of breast cancer patients present in late stage, contributing to higher mortality and low overall survival.
In Kenya, cervical cancer contributes 5,250 (12.9%) of the new cancer cases annually and 3,286 (11.84%) of all cancer deaths annually. It is a leading cause of cancer related deaths in Kenya and the 2nd most common cancer among females. (GLOBOCAN, 2018). According to WHO 2018, 33 per 100,000 women in Kenya have cervical cancer and 22 per 100,000 die from the disease.
Over seventy per cent of cancer patients in Kenya are diagnosed at an advanced stage.
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