Mozambique: 17,000 died from breast cancer in 2019

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Mozambique: 17,000 died from breast cancer in 2019

2:46 CAT | 13 Oct 2020

Photo: O País

Seventeen thousand people died from breast cancer in Mozambique in 2019, a year in which 25,000 cases of the disease were registered. According to the Ministry of Health, the number of cases is set to rise to around 51,800 in 2040.

Breast cancer is a malignant tumour that develops in the cells of breast tissue. It is much more common in women, but it can also affect men.

This Monday, two women of different age shared their stories about the cancer they fought.

“First, I felt a lump in my left breast,” Magalia Fulane relates. “Then I realised that the lump was changing in size. I went to a health unit close to home, where they ran tests. From there, my case transferred to Maputo Central Hospital, from which I received a positive diagnosis in March 2018.”

“The advice I give to all women and men” is greater vigilance for symptoms, because the sooner the disease is discovered, the greater the chance of cure. “This is the reality now dawning on many young people,” she said.

Zaina Nhamussua also beat cancer, her experience little different to Magalia’s. When she was first diagnosed with cancer, she became depressed, she said, but managed to overcome the problem.

According to the World Health Organisation, breast cancer kills more than 500,000 women worldwide annually.

The WHO interim representative in Mozambique, Tomas Valdez, says screening must continue despite Covid-19, if the situation is not to worsen.

“In the current context of the COVID-19 pandemic, where evidence shows the discontinuity of health services globally, cancer screening and care has also been affected. And low- and middle-income countries where health systems are already facing challenges, the immediate resumption of these services is crucial to reducing the burden of non-communicable diseases, in particular breast and cervical cancer,” Valdez says.

Breast cancer is on the rise in Mozambique. Minister of Health Armindo Tiago says that Mozambique will register about 52,000 cases annually by 2040, and deaths will rise.

For this reason, “the weapon we have against cancer is the same weapon that we must have against Covid-19. Cancer affects women of reproductive age, takes them away from us, takes them away from their husbands, children, sisters-in-law. We must launch an approach under which, any time a patient goes to our health unit, she is evaluated in all aspects of the disease. We will measure blood pressure, we will determine blood glucose, we will determine weight and body mass index. We will advise the patient to lose weight and self-examine,” Minister Tiago says.

The advice came at the start of breast cancer awareness month, “Pink October”, which this year is celebrated under the motto, “One touch can change your life”.

By Amândio Borges

Source: O País