Health experts in Phalombe district have expressed worry over the increase in number of women diagnosed with signs of cervical cancer.
This was said on Friday during official launch of mass screening campaign of the cervical cancer at Lihaka Primary School organised by Disease Relief through Excellent Advanced Means (DREAM) under Community of Sant’ Egidio with support from Norwegian Church Aid and Act Alliance.
Cervical cancer coordinator in the district, Ella Mkandawire, revealed in an interview that out of 100 women that go for screening of the viral disease four of are found to be having the signs of the disease.
“Currently here we are on four percent which means that out of 100 women whom we screen four are found to be cervical cancer VIA positive and this is worrisome,” said Mkandawire.
She said this is the case since many girls are starting having sexual intercourse at the smaller age while they are not mature and women are having a lot of sexual partners hence the campaign is targeting girls aged over 15 and all women.
DREAM’s programmes director Lawrence Alumando said it is their ambition to see that everyone in this country is aware of issues of cervical cancer which kills over 2800 women every year in Malawi only.
“We are targeting zero generation cancer, we want to grow with generation that is aware with issues of cancer and generation that grows with spirit of going for screening.
“You know, In Malawi every year we lose 2800 women due to cervical cancer and that’s a huge figure as you can see that on issues of mortality due to HIV we have really improved. Let’s now focus on dealing with diseases like cancer,” he said.
Alumando then urged girls and women to go in large numbers to the health facilities in order to know their status.
According to the district’s health office, the screening is being done in all the 15 health facilities in the district.
During the launch, as part of entertainment, there was a netball match involving Sambanjati CDSS and Chinolampeni CDSS which ended in favour of the former with seven baskets to four.
