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Mewata screening of cancer in Lindi, Mtwara next month
2008-02-13 09:19:43
By Lusekelo Philemon
Medical Women Association of Tanzania (Mewata) will carry out breast cancer screening campaign in Mtwara and Lindi regions early next month.
Mewata chairperson, Dr. Marina Njelekela, told journalists in Dar es salaam recently that the campaign is aimed at enabling all women in the country to undergo screening of breast cancer.
``Our survey shows that the size of the problem in the country is big and requires immediate action,`` Dr Njelekela said.
She said as a result of increasing poverty levels, most women suffer from the problem because they can not easily access screening centers, and even where Mewata established its screening centers, in district headquarters for example, large number of women failed to come up.
``Most of them cannot afford fares to attend screening centers,`` she added.
Dr. Njelekela suggested that the only solution to address the challenge was to change approach so that all women in villages are reached.
``If we reach all women in villages, there`s need to change the entire strategy by using health trainers at district level, to undertake our task in those villages,`` she said.
She explained that the medical women association was willing to extend to the North-western part of the country like Arusha, Manyara and Kilimanjaro, September this year.
Earlier, the association assisted more than 7,200 women who were screened in Dar es Salaam, while in Mwanza more than 11,600 underwent the same procedure.
``Our collaboration with ITV significantly helped mobilise women to attend screening clinics. We would never have had the capacity to reach such a large number of women on our own,`` Dr. Njelekela said.
Dr. Njelekela said 90 per cent of resources used in the campaign were raised through Mewata\'s collaboration with ITV. The association disclosed that the campaign helped raise over 100m/- which financed the initiative.
Mewata\'s campaign has now attracted the attention of Tanzanian government which, through the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare as well as the Office of the First Lady, is providing human resources and infrastructure to facilitate screening initiative.
Mewata has already secured a plot to build its permanent office in Mbweni, on the outskirts of the city centre.
Dr. Njelekela said that although cancer is one of the major public health problems in the country, it has not been given adequate attention.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), there were approximately 21, 000 new cases of cancer in 2002 in Tanzania. Out of these, 10,920 of those affected were women.
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