Nearly three thousand women are dying in the country, every year due to cervical cancer, the Medicines Sans Frontiers- MSF in Malawi has revealed.
The disclosure was made when MSF was having an engagement meeting with journalists in Blantyre.
The International Health Organization has said about twenty thousand women are screened annually, out of which, about four thousand are diagnosed.
According to Marion Perchayre Head of Mission to Malawi at MSF, the country has the highest prevalence rate of cervical cancer in the whole world.
Perchayre attributed this to a number of factors including; high Human Papilloma Virus prevalence rate and high HIV prevalence rate- and also the low number of women who are reached with screening.
Perchayre Has since called for intensified vaccination campaigns against the disease describing it as one of the surest ways of dealing with cervical cancer, aside early detection.
Meanwhile, George Chilinda, Gyneoncosurgeon at MSF in Malawi has said inadequate specialist doctors in public health facilities is impeding the efforts aimed at treating cervical cancer patients.
According to him, there are at least three doctors who are trained to treat such patients in these hospitals.
“In Mzuzu there’s none, in Lilongwe there’s one and in Blantyre there are at least two. These are the very few doctors we have in public health facilities, ” he said.
The Gyneoncosurgeon has since made an appeal to the authorities to ensure that government hospitals are providing radiotherapy treatment, saying currently most patients are sent to other countries, including Kenya- to receive this kind of treatment.
