Ugandan specialist wins cancer screening award

Dr Martin Origa, a specialist in cancer of the female reproductive system at the Uganda Cancer Institute, has won a prestigious award for designing a cervical cancer screening strategy that uses mobile (mHealth) technologies.

Dr Origa told the Monitor on Thursday that the excellence award was given on August 22 by the Lee Jong-Wook (LJW) fellowship, which is run by the South Korea-based Yonsei University.

Dr Origa said his strategy is aimed at increasing sensitisation and access to screening services to address high cervical cancer deaths in the country.

“Screening level for cervical cancer is really low –it is between four and 25 percent [for women]. We want to ensure that 70 percent of our women are screened and also 90 percent of those with disease are diagnosed early. Cervical cancer is the commonest cancer among women and it is the leading cause of death,” he said.

The expert added: “Last year at the Uganda Cancer Institute (UCI), we had 6,900 patients, who were diagnosed and about 4,500 died. So, our mortality is more than 50 percent yet in developed countries, they have almost eliminated that type of cancer through early screening and vaccination.”

According to information from the International Agency for Research on Cancer, cervical cancer was the commonest cancer in the country, contributing 6,959 (20 percent) of the 34,000 new cancer cases in the year 2020.  There were 35 different types of cancers recorded in the report. Cervical cancer was also the leading cause of cancer-related death, killing 4,607.

Explaining how the screening strategy will work, Dr Origa said they would increase cancer screening through the use of short text messages and voice calls to educate women about cervical cancer. The women will also be directed on where to get the service.

“This will work for anyone with a mobile phone. Many women have phones which they use for communication and mobile banking. So we want to add a public health message,” Dr Origa explained. “Later, depending on how this works, we can use smartphone apps and schedule appointments,” he added.

Dr Origa said many people only come for screening after observing symptoms, and yet this means cancer has advanced.

“Cervical cancer, in its very early stages does not show symptoms and we want to detect it at that stage. So, if we can get messages to women asking them to come for screening, that will create a positive direction that we are looking for,” he added. He said the work on implementation of the strategy is underway.

Human papillomavirus (HPV) is one of the infectious agents implicated in the causation of cervical cancer.

“The HPV is sexually-transmitted. Most of the people who develop this type of cancer (cervical cancer) are those sexually active –it is never seen in those sexually naïve.”  The HPV vaccine has been made to prevent this cancer but the uptake is not at the required level, according to the information from the Ministry of Health.

“The closure of schools affected HPV vaccination because we majorly do vaccination in schools. But in the current year, the [coverage of the] first dose is above 90 percent and the second dose is above 70 percent,”’ Dr Michael Baganizi, the head of the immunisation programme at the Health ministry said on Wednesday.