Posts by author
Esther Nakkazi
Quality palliative care: investing in data collection to monitor and improve services in Africa
Effective palliative care has become a growing priority in African health services in recent decades. This is partly a result of the increasing burden of non-communicable diseases including cancer – and the sad reality that palliative care is often all…
Not just a climate issue: cutting cancer rates through cleaner cooking fuels in Africa
Nearly one billion people in Africa depend on polluting fuels like wood, charcoal, and kerosene for cooking, lighting, and heating their homes. The resulting household air pollution leads to approximately 700,000 premature deaths every year, constituting about 10% of the…
Regional cancer centres to boost access to cancer care across Uganda
The Uganda Cancer Institute, set up in Kampala in 1967 as a centre for research and treatment of lymphoma, was one of the first cancer treatment centres in East Africa, and continues to play a leading role as a national…
HPV vaccination: generating demand by spreading knowledge and information
"The most sustainable way is for people to understand that when my girl reaches 10 years, I just take her for the HPV vaccine. That's the sustainable way where all of us take responsibility. We either hold our daughters' hands…
Hospice caring for women with cervical cancer launches own mobile screening clinic
It’s 9.30 in the heart of Kaliro district in eastern Uganda, and a group of women is already gathered outside the Nansololo Health Centre II by the time the van from the Rays of Hope Hospice Jinja arrives. They are…
Cancer drugs for Africa… from Africa?
More than two years ago, Cipla Quality Chemical Industries, a pharmaceutical manufacturing company in Kampala, Uganda, announced that it would start producing cancer drugs. In a deal agreed in 2021 with the Ministry of Health, the company, which is part…
Cervical cancer elimination efforts boosted by simpler ways to identify and treat pre-cancerous lesions
Project sites in seven low-income countries have reached the 90% targets set by the World Health Organization (WHO) for treating women identified with pre-cancerous lesions. This success was achieved using a model of cervical cancer elimination developed for use in…
First voluntary licensing of cancer drug sets ‘vital precedent’ for the industry
The first voluntary licence for a patented cancer medicine was signed last month on the fringes of the 2022 World Cancer Congress in Geneva. The agreement between the pharmaceutical company Novartis and the Medicines Patent Pool – a UN backed…
Addressing the pathological hole at the core of many LMIC cancer plans
A patient visits their local primary care facility with symptoms that could indicate a possible cancer. What happens next could determine their chances of survival. In the event that it turns out to be a cancer, a quick and accurate…
Surviving childhood cancer in Africa: helping families stick with the treatment plan is key
Faced with poverty, low maternal education and fears about treatment effects, many families in sub-Saharan Africa are abandoning cancer treatment for children and young people, harming chances of survival. In Kenya and Zambia, for instance, treatments for childhood cancers are…