The Voice (Francistown)
Naledi Mokgwathi
30 October 2007
The Cancer Association, in collaboration with Nyangabwe Hospital and the Ministry of Health, held the first ever Breast cancer symposium in the country.
It was at the symposium, in Francistown, that a cancer known as Sarcoma Tumour was revealed to be on the rise, attacking HIV infected people.
According to Don Paleske, a Hematologist/Medical Oncologist at the Princess Marina Hospital, cancer is now the number one HIV/AIDS related opportunistic killer illness.
He revealed that 8% to 10% of HIV positive people were infected with cancer, something that would have been unlikely had they been HIV negative. Out of these, 85% to 90% of them are being attacked by a cancer known as Sarcoma tumour.
Sarcoma tumour is a certain kind of cancer caused by the Human herpes virus (HHV8), also known as Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpes virus (KSHV). It became more widely known as one of the AIDS defining illnesses in the 1980s.
"A lot of people are hiding it and I don't know why," said Paleske.
He added that there is not a day that passes without him attending to an HIV patient with Sarcoma tumour. The cancer is characterised by dark spots on the body.
"Most people hide it under their clothes and there is not much said about it publicly. Unlike Mollowabadimo (shingles) that people are a bit free to talk about, this one is a taboo to talk about."
This is a type of skin cancer that causes disfiguring and sometimes painful lesions.
Also worrying the doctor is that some colleagues in the medical profession seem to be sweeping the issue under the carpet, and saying little about it.
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