Peoples Daily, Monday, March 1, 2010. Page 26

The Director of Strategic Information, Training and Research of the Institute of Human Virology Nigeria, (IHVN) Professor Clement Adebamowo, was a Professor of Surgery at the University of Ibadan. He was also recently appointed honorary Professor at the University of Dundee in the UK. In this interview with Jamila Nuhu Musa, he spoke on the ‘triple epidemic’ Nigeria currently faces and other issues. Excerpts:

As a cancer expert, can you tell us about the situation of cancer in Nigeria?

Nigeria like most developing countries is experiencing what I will like too call, triple epidemic. The first is the old communicable diseases like malaria, tuberculosis and typhoid, which are still very much with us and largely uncontrolled despite efforts of roll back malaria and childhood immunization. Though they are helping us manage the diseases, we still have some distance to go. The second epidemic that we are now facing is the non-communicable diseases. We are increasingly an obese nation, people are much bigger than it is healthy for them and we have increased number of people developing hypertension, diabetes and other diseases that follow from these two conditions as well cancer.  The third epidemic is the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and Nigeria now is the nation with the second largest number of people leading with the disease. The HIV epidemic complicates the first two in the sense that people with HIV, are at increased risk of other infections. For instance, people with HIV, we are now learning, have increased risks of cancers, that’s where we are in Nigeria at the moment.

How appropriate is the International Cancer Center to cater for cancer patients in Nigeria?

In a country like ours with about 150 million people, we certainly have significant number of new cancers developing every year. Most of these patients don’t get access to care but an increasing number has the opportunity and the resources to get good quality care. The International Cancer Center that has been established would be a place where these people can get the same kind of care that they would have gotten abroad that is why it is a laudable initiative that deserves support.

What kind of support can the Center get from IHVN?

Well, I can talk about what aspect or what relationship we are discussing with the center in terms of IHVN. We are very strong in research and our discussions with the International Cancer Center, is to support their research activities because this is not in the first phase of the cancer center. The first phase is to provide treatment and prevention services, so while they are doing that, we will be giving them the support for research. In terms of other opportunities, I think probably, the most important thing that needs to happen is to get the national health insurance people to begin to support cancer diagnosis, prevention and treatment activities, at the moment they have not done that. It would be nice for them to start doing that. This would be the most important intervention in cancer care in Nigeria.