Photo: World Health Organization
PANA
Accra, Ghana – Ghana is to start a pilot project next year to vaccinate adolescent girls against cervical cancer to stem its spread, President John Dramani Mahama announced on Saturday.
The government will also establish a national cancer registry to facilitate record keeping on the disease and reach out to more patients in the rural areas, he said when he addressed women groups in Accra to raise awareness on breast cancer.
Cervical cancer is one of the most frequently reported cancer cases among women between the ages of 15 and 44 in Ghana while breast cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer deaths in sub-Saharan Africa.
“When that pilot is successful we are going to expand the vaccination across to our women in order to protect them from cervical cancer,” President Mahama said.
He added that his government would continue to collaborate with development partners to eliminate breast and cervical cancer.
President Mahama noted that the survival rate of breast cancer was becoming high as a result of advocacy and other educational programmes and said health workers would be trained, particularly in the rural areas, to carry out investigations and screening programmes for early detection and treatment.
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