CANCER AND CLIMATE CHANGE
Climate change is increasingly exposing cancerous factors while distributing careful patients, impacting their survival and driving mortality rate even further.
Experts are now affirming that more than 10,000,000 people die annually as a result of cancer. Out of this, 700,000 being Africans.
Cancer is the second biggest killer globally after cardiovascular diseases killing about 23,000 Kenyans as per 2019 results.
Climate change is now accelerating lung, skin and Castrol intestinal cancers. This is due to owing to high temperatures, poor quality of air and dietary complications.
With the increased exposure to carcinogen such as aflatoxin is also to lead to stomach cancer. Aflatoxins are a family of toxins produced by certain fungi that are found in agricultural products such as maize, peanuts and even meat.
As climate change complicates cancer treatment, the quality of infrastructure in Africa is still poor with health infrastructure undeveloped.
Statistics show that 75% of all cancer diagnosis are mostly found at stage four and in most cases loss of patients’ lives.
For many years so far, Kenya and the sub-Saharan countries have been forced to seek treatment in Egypt and India.
African Nations have failed in cancer treatment. With a population of 1.3 people in Africa, there are only 300 radiotherapy units against a demand of 5800. This leads to patients waiting which even worsens the situation leading to deaths.
The climate catastrophe in Africa has complicated cancer treatment and care as 1000s of people continue to suffer. This has then led to the Side-lines of COP 27 in Egypt to meet to discuss ways of making cancer treatment and care affordable.
Africa has launched a program dubbed at Accelerating Cancer Treatment ACT to look at cancer states in Africa.
By 2040, the incidences of cancer could double to 1.4 million cases in Africa per year and experts warn that the heaviest burden will come from the sub-Saharan Africa where the population is poorer, the health infrastructure undeveloped and effects of climate change harsh.
