The documented incidence rate of cervical cancer in Tanzania is 50.9 cases per 100,000 per year.
Mortality rate worldwide being approximately 250,000/ year, with 90% of all deaths accounting to developing countries. Yet in most developing countries there are no effective prevention programs and hence the risk of disease and death from cervical cancer remains largely uncontrolled.
Invasive cervical cancers are preceded by a long phase of precancerous lesions that can be detected by screening and treated effectively by simple treatments which prevent invasive cancer.
In October 2019, a team of one doctor and two nurses have been trained at Ocean Road Cancer Institute in Dar Es Salaam with the target to improve quality and efficiency of cervical cancer screening in our facility.
For primary prevention, health education is provided to all females attending our outpatient department and on the wards. HPV vaccine is available for girl’s between 9-14 years. In December 2019, we plan to do an outreach program to the community level in order to raise awareness on the problem.
For secondary prevention, we offer screening service every Thursday. The methods used are visual inspection with acetic acid (VIA) and Lugol´s Iodine (VILI) and for patients > 50 years cervical smear with Papanicolaou stain (PAP smear). For patients with positive VIA, cryotherapy is available.
The screening is available for free. Only for PAP stain patients are asked to contribute 20.000 TSh.