Former Minister of Health and member of the Lancet Commission on Oncology, Prof. Isaac Adewole, has revealed the number of radiotherapy machines working in Nigeria.
Adewole said Nigeria needs more radiotherapy machines to improve access to cancer care in the country.
Adewole said this had become imperative for better treatment outcomes among cancer patients, lamenting that only two radiotherapy machines were working in the country.
The former minister spoke during a product presentation in Abuja by Stepcho Nigeria Limited in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Health and Bebig Medical.
He said: “We will gain more as a country when we offer treatment to our people. Then they will develop trust in public health and we will give them confidence about getting quality care.
“Ideally, we need at least four machines for one million people to offer effective treatment. There shouldn’t be less than 200 machines working in Nigeria.
“We have only two machines working in Nigeria. So, there is room for 198 machines in Nigeria. The provision of these machines will prevent Nigerians from going out of the country to access care.”
Bebig’s sales Directors, Hamidi Sabrina and Mohammadi Reza, said their new Bebig LINAC machine was designed to deliver cancer care services in the country.
In November, The President of the Nigerian Cancer Society, Dr Adamu Umar, said Nigeria has only 13 radiotherapy machines for its teeming population.
Dr Umar, however, said most of the radiotherapy machines in government healthcare facilities are not functioning.
Radiation therapy is a type of cancer treatment that uses beams of intense energy to kill cancer cells.
According to the World Health Organization, more than 50 per cent of cancer patients require radiotherapy as part of cancer care and it is frequently used to treat the most common types, such as breast, cervical, colorectal, and lung cancer. Yet, access to radiotherapy is inadequate, particularly in low- and middle-income countries.
The 2018 Globocan statistics showed that there were 211,052 cases of breast, prostate, cervical, colorectum, and Non-Hodgkin lymphoma cancers in Nigeria.