Tanzania to beef up nuclear medicine cancer diagnostic, treatment centers

DAR ES SALAAM, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) — Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan said on Monday that plans are underway to beef up nuclear medicine cancer diagnostic and treatment centers in mainland Tanzania and Zanzibar.
President Hassan said the program to enhance nuclear medicine centers for cancer control, a technique that uses radioactive material to help diagnose and treat the disease, will cost 59 million euros (about 63 million U.S. dollars).
The announcement was delivered on her behalf by Tanzania’s Zanzibar President Hussein Ali Mwinyi during the inauguration of laboratories and offices of the Tanzania Atomic Energy Commission on the Zanzibar archipelago.
Mwinyi said the cancer diagnostic and treatment centers at the Ocean Road Cancer Institute in Dar es Salaam, the Bugando Referral Hospital in Mwanza region, and the Benjamin Mkapa Hospital in Dodoma region will be reinforced, with such centers at the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Center in Kilimanjaro region, the Mbeya Referral Hospital in Mbeya region, and the Mnazi Mmoja Hospital in Zanzibar also benefiting from the program.
Tanzanian Ministry of Health revealed that about 44,000 new cancer cases are reported annually in Tanzania, citing the year 2020 when 40,464 new cancer cases and 26,945 cancer-related deaths were reported.
According to the ministry, of the new cases in 2020, the leading types of cancer were cervical cancer, accounting for 25 percent, followed by breast cancer at 10 percent and prostate cancer at 9 percent. ■