African Region (AFR)

Cancer in Sub-Saharan Africa, volume III, released jointly by the African Cancer Registry Network (AFCRN),  UICC and the International Agency on Research on Cancer (IARC). The publication presents statistics on cancer incidence from 31 cancer registries in 22 countries across Africa, eight of which are new, not appearing in Volume II.

Cancer control in Africa: paving the way to Universal Health Coverage” prepared jointly by UICC, AORTIC and ICCP. Developed from an advocacy and policy perspective the publication describes the status of national cancer control planning efforts on the continent with a view to including cancer in UHC plans across the African region. The focus of each chapter is to place a ‘spotlight’ on the current status of a specific aspect of cancer control, challenges and gaps in each area as well as policy recommendations for improvement to achieve the ‘Health for All’ vision of Universal Health Coverage. 

Written about cancer in Africa by health professionals working in Africa or international colleagues working closely with Africa, identifies ‘The State of Oncology in Africa, 2015’ as a unique report. Overall, it paints a depressing and deplorable picture of the current situation regarding cancer in Africa. Many patients do not seek traditional medical advice. Those who do, do so when the cancer is at an advanced stage when cure is no longer possible. There is a lack of oncologists from all disciplines, nurses and the necessary health professionals and technicians to support their work. There is a lack of treatment centres. There is a lack of treatments. Most countries do not have any Radiotherapy equipment. Most countries do not have access to opioid drugs for palliative care and pain control. The situation is bound to get worse as the population grows and ages and cancer risk factors imported from high-resource countries begin to have their effect. The evidence is clear. Over the next decades, cancer will cause Africans to suffer and die in greater numbers; much greater numbers.

The National Cancer Control Strategy for Kenya, 2017-2022 recognized that cancer research is a central strategy in all cancer control planning in the country, and identified the priority research topics in the various domains of cancer control. This document, therefore, summarizes this research agenda for Kenya, and aims to serve as a quick reference document for researchers working in diverse organizations, either in academia, research organizations, public health institutes as well as independent investigators, locally or abroad, to partner with the government in cancer control through research. This research agenda therefore can be utilized for planning research projects as well as advocating for funding for cancer research.