Daily Independent (Lagos)
Emma Maduabuchi
11 October 2008
Lagos — Despite known serious medical advancements in the care and treatment of cancers, Nigerians fall to the scourge that is currently ravaging the nation
Hajia Nana-Aisha Ali and Mrs Ramatu Adama were two of a kind. They had one thing in common, a bond of daughter-and-mother relationship. That bond was so strong that it was quite easy for neighbours and outsiders to see how deeply they loved each other.
Unfortunately, Adama was diagnosed of cancer in April 1998. It was a tough time for her daughter, who watched helplessly, in dismay as life was gradually squeezed out of her beloved mother. She could not save her mother from the agonising pain she went through until she finally passed on at the age of 51 in January 1999. Adama died of cancer.
Ali narrates her account of those nightmarish days and how her entire family was devastated as a result of that tragedy. However, the tragedy of the loss of a mother opened her eyes. It was then she began to realise how much cancer patients suffer, and how very little the disease is known in the country, and the little being done to control or combat it.
Her words: "My mother's case made me aware of the plight of the cancer victims and what significant roles our society must play to alleviate the pains they go through. I was disheartened to learn that a cancer patient needs to go very far to get assistance, which in most cases takes up the entire life savings of the family."
That was about nine years ago, and today cancer is still claiming victims. It has ravaged the Nigerian population that it can now be likened to a scourge. Nigerians have had to mourn two illustrious and iconic citizens, who died recently of cancer in foreign hospitals.
Yinka Craig, ace broadcaster died in far away United States of America (U.S.A.), at the Mayo Hospital Rochester, Minnesota early Tuesday morning, September 23. He was reported to have died of Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma (NHL), described as a group of cancers that affect the white blood cells. Before his death, the founder of Ozzidi music, Sunny Okosuns had fallen victim of the dreaded disease. Just like Craig, Okosuns died of a cancer related ailment on Sunday, May 25, also in an American hospital.
Okosuns and Craig's ailments were wrongly diagnosed in Nigeria. They got to know their actual illness after a second diagnosis abroad. By then, it had become too late to save their lives.
Okosuns and Craig were regarded as role models and were adored by Nigerians for achieving national acclaim by investing greatly in their talents, and inspiring others to great accomplishments through patience and hard work.
Gani Fawehinmi tested the bitter pills of wrong diagnoses, but is lucky to be alive to tell his story. The legal luminary and civil rights activist confirmed in a widely publicised statement that he was indeed diagnosed of a different ailment in Nigeria. According to reports, he was being treated for pneumonia before he was flown abroad. He was taken to the United Kingdom (UK), when it became serious and apparent that the medical attention he was receiving in Nigeria was not improving his condition. According to one of his daughters, Rabiat, doctors in the UK had to diagnose Fawehinmi the second time where they discovered her father was suffering from cancer of the lungs.
"He was not given proper diagnosis of what was wrong with him in the hospital in Nigeria where he was first attended to. They told him that something different was wrong with him. Even when he was trying to make sure that everything was all right, it was obvious that something was wrong somewhere.
"So, when the proper diagnosis was made, from then on, the proper medications were prescribed. When he travelled to the UK, contrary to the insinuation that he had heart-related problem, doctors diagnosed that he had lung cancer," Rabiat said.
Fawehinmi is considered by many as a privileged Nigerian. He is fortunate that his ailment was eventually properly diagnosed and known. He has the wherewithal also to travel abroad for proper treatment. Many Nigerians who live on the lower rungs of the societal ladder who could not scrap up enough savings to pay for the poor medical services here in Nigeria may not be that lucky.
Oliver de Coque, the bearded highlife giant also travelled this unfortunate road. He died on Friday, June 20. His death somewhat generated some controversies. While family members described what killed him as a mysterious ailment, many suspected cancer. It is believed that if he was flown abroad like others, the ailment could have been properly diagnosed and discovered, and maybe, lived to give his own testimony. There was also speculation that he died because his family members probably could not raise enough funds to fly him abroad.
Cancer, according to Dr. Abiodun Popoola, a consultant oncologist at the Lagos State University College of Medicine (LASUCOM), is "an abnormal tissue mass; a growth of which is uncoordinated and uncontrollable even after the stimulus, that is, the thing that triggers the growth is removed."
The consultant says that cancer has the characteristic of spreading to other parts of the body, and can do this, either through the blood stream or through what medical experts call empathic drainage.
Treatment of cancer has been described as very expensive and clearly out of the reach of a large percentage of Nigerians. Emmanuel Okorafor, a Lagos-based pharmacist, explains that the disease is usually expensive because even while one spends to combat it, one is also investigating to determine the state of the disease.
"It is a very painful disease. It is very expensive as well as painstaking," Okorafor said.
For Dr. Ndi Okwuosa, the director of Golden Cross Hospital (GCH), Festac Town, Lagos, "managing the disease is very expensive. Unless one has government sponsorship, it would be almost impossible for an average individual in Nigeria to bear the burden."
The pharmacist, however, revealed that much progress is being made in the field, especially with the development of a new vaccine. He confirms that Cervarix has been developed by Glaxo SmithKline, which protects women against cancer of the cervix. According to him, this is a most rampant and deadly kind of cancer, which kills at least one woman every two weeks.
Okwuosa said that by December last year, Glaxo received from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) "complete response" in regard to approval of the Cervarix cancer vaccine. European regulators, he revelled, had also already approved Cervarix in September this year.
"Glaxo is trying to increase its share of the global cancer drug market, which is expected to jump from its current $35 billion to $66 billion by 2010," he said.
Saturday Enquirer also gathered that Merck & Co. (MRK), and Sanofi-Aventis SA (SNY), already have their cervical cancer vaccine, Gardasil, in both the U.S. and EU markets. But the reality on ground suggests that the excruciating poverty in the country makes it extremely impossible for most Nigerians to access the ordinary across-the counter drugs.
"How can such a people be able to pay cancer bills?" One analyst queried.
The consensus among a great majority of Nigerians is that so many ordinary Nigerians are perishing as a result of cancer and other deadly diseases, which are usually unknown to them.
But Popoola says that there is evidence that Nigerians do not go to the right places and often fail to seek help at the right time.
"At times too, when they are told that this thing is wrong with them, some would say 'no, it can't be me.' They now start seeking spiritual help and before they know it, the case is worsened.
"For instance, in the case of breast cancer, when the lump is detected and you want to remove the lump and eventually it is diagnosed as breast cancer and you tell such a person that what is actually needed to save her life is to remove the whole breast, the woman may run from the hospital and delay until the thing is advanced, likewise the case of some other cancers. If people go to the right place and at the right time, proper investigation would be conducted. We have found cases where people go abroad and still have wrong diagnosis as well," Popoola avowed.
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