Save the lives of children with cancer in Zimbabwe

CANCER AWARENESS PILOT REPORT IN ZIMBABWE

Two cancers which have caused unnecessary deaths among children in Zimbabwe are Wilms Tumour (Cancer of the kidney) and Retinoblastoma (Cancer of the eye). The Childhood Cancer Early Diagnosis campaign, implemented by Kidzcan between February and June 2019 aimed to address the problem of late diagnosis and referral of childhood cancers in Harare and Chitungwiza suburbs of Zimbabwe. By building the capacity of the professional health staff and community health workers, the project equipped these key health cadres with improved knowledge, skills and tools to increase screening and referral of children suspected of the two cancers. This campaign was implemented as a pilot project at 50 health facilities in Chitungwiza and Harare suburbs. Given the geographical coverage, the relatively short implementation phase, and the restricted budget, the project achieved remarkable progress and successes. Guided by the Primary Health Care Approach, the project infused childhood cancer screening within the national Family Health Service strategy. At national level, the project advocated for the enabling environment for increased childhood cancer screening through lobbying policy makers and influencers and by engaging the mass media. Community Health Workers advanced considerably in engaging their communities resulting in mothers bringing their children for cancer screening. Health centres reported an increase in the number of mothers demanding to have their children screened which is a critical step towards early detection. Challenges encountered during the project span were due to budget restrictions, low staff morale and attrition against an unstable socio-economic environment. The unanimous appeal across all the project partners and across community actors is that the project should be expanded and scaled up to cover the whole country. Implemented as a pilot project, Kidzcan and Ministry of Health and Child Care designed this project to test feasibility and usefulness of specific activities and approaches as they developed evidence based strategies. The results of this project provides evidence based programming which will provide policy guidance for the benefit of possible future initiatives in Childhood cancer screening and children’s health in general. While much remains to be done, Kidzcan has come far in the fight to understand, treat, and control childhood cancer. With adequate support, great improvement will be realized in the dealing with the current challenges facing childhood cancer diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation in Zimbabwe. Figures coming through show that during this three month period just over 300 000 children were screened for the two most common cancers in Zimbabwe, namely Cancer of the Eye and Cancer of the Kidney. Thank you to ALL Global Giving Donors for you continued support to Kidzcan Zimbabwe. #NO CHILD SHOULD BE LEFT BEHIND