Africa urgently needs investment in cancer research, diagnosis and prevention, says Nigeria’s Dr Zainab Shinkafi-Bagudu, President-elect of the Union for International Cancer (UICC), who says just building more hospitals is not the answer, reports The Guardian.
A Nigerian paediatrician and advocate for cancer patients, Bagudu is the first African to lead the organisation, and takes up the role as cancer cases and deaths are projected to rise sharply, with the greatest increases expected in the world’s poorest countries.
On the sidelines of the World Cancer Congress in Hong Kong last month, Bagugu recalls the story of a young breast cancer patient, Gloria, whom she last saw in Abuja, Nigeria. The young woman was so ill she was in hospital. The disease had spread to her bones and lungs, and she was struggling with complications from the disease.
Then, at the global conference on cancer thousands of miles away in Hong Kong last month – attended more by more than 2 000 people from 124 countries – Bagudu saw her again. Gloria was walking with a stick because of the cancer in her hips, but she was attending sessions, speaking about her experience and advocating for other patients.
“I saw her hopping on the corridor here. I was shocked,” Bagudu recalled.
“The fact that it [the election of a black person] took so long is a reflection of the inadequacy of cancer care along the entire spectrum in Africa and other low- and middle-income countries,” she says.
Her election comes as countries across the global south face a growing cancer burden while also struggling with shortages of diagnostic equipment, medicines, radiotherapy services, trained specialists and financing.
According to the most recent figures from the World Health Organisation’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), 20.6m people were diagnosed with cancer and 9.8m died from the disease in 2024.
The IARC forecasts an annual rise in cases of 67% to more than 34m by 2050, while deaths could reach 17.5m, an increase of 79%. Most of the additional deaths are expected to occur in low-income countries.
According to Bagudu, the forecasts reinforce the need to re-orientate global cancer policy towards countries where health systems are already under pressure.
“Cancer is tripling and is going to keep on increasing, and the people affected by it most are those from the global south,” she says.
Her ambition is to use the UICC – more than 1 100 member organisations across more than 170 countries – as a bridge between countries with limited cancer services and the research, technology and treatments being developed elsewhere.
But Bagudu says access to cancer care cannot be solved simply by building more specialist hospitals. “We keep building cancer centres and we keep seeing that it’s not enough,” she adds.
Cancer centres need to be supported by screening, early diagnosis, radiotherapy, medicines, trained health workers and systems that prevent families from being pushed into financial hardship by treatment.
“I’m trying to reduce financial toxicity for the woman in the village,” she says.
That gap is already visible in basic cancer services. UICC chief executive Cary Adams told delegates that less than half of the world’s population has access to diagnostic services, while many patients in low- and middle-income countries pay for care out of pocket.
Only 14% of the estimated 73m people who need palliative care each year have access to it, according to figures presented at the congress.
Bagudu’s own work in Nigeria has focused on some of these gaps. A paediatrician and founder of the Medicaid Cancer Foundation, she helped establish Kebbi state’s first cancer-control plan and registry during her time as Chairperson, First Ladies Against Cancer (FLAC) from 2015 to 2023.
Her husband, a Nigerian politician, was the former Governor of Kebbi state.
Her foundation has also worked on cancer awareness and access to treatment for vulnerable patients. She has campaigned for cervical cancer prevention, including the introduction of the single-dose HPV vaccine into Nigeria’s routine immunisation programme in 2023.
In 2024, she became senior adviser to Nigeria’s co-ordinating Mminister of health and social welfare with a brief that included women’s health and cancer advocacy. Bagudu now wants to take some of those lessons to the international level, including pushing for new approaches to cancer financing.
She says cancer has never received the kind of global treatment financing mechanism from which HIV, TB and malaria have benefited.
“Cancer has never directly been a beneficiary of global funding for treatment,” she says.
She will support efforts to develop a global cancer financing platform modelled partly on the Global Fund to Fight Aids, TB and Malaria, to mobilise resources from governments, donors and other sources to strengthen cancer prevention, diagnosis and treatment.
The proposal comes as African governments face competing demands on health budgets, and international development financing is under pressure with significant cuts to foreign aid.
Bagudu also wants greater attention paid to cancers that can be prevented or reduced through interventions already available, and plans to focus particularly on childhood cancers and liver cancer linked to hepatitis.
That prevention must go alongside investment in diagnosis and treatment, particularly as cancer risk is shaped by factors including tobacco use, infections, alcohol, diet and obesity, she adds.
She wants Africa to have a greater role in cancer research, rather than remaining primarily a recipient of discoveries and training from richer countries.
“Research is a little bit more difficult because you have to have the human capacity, you have to have the interest and then you have to have the right environment,” she says.
She points to emerging research centres in Nigeria, Rwanda and Kenya, as well as training programmes that bring African health workers to countries including China to develop skills in radiation therapy, cancer technology and other specialist areas.
The UICC has set targets including reducing cancer mortality by 25% by 2035, reducing exposure to major cancer risk factors by 30% and ensuring that 60% of cancers are diagnosed at an early stage.
Bagudu, who is also a member of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH), UK, says the ultimate test of her presidency will be whether the global commitments made in conference rooms reach people far beyond them.
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
Experts call for comprehensive, large-scale response to slash Africa's cancer burden
Global breast cancer cases expected to rise to 3.5m by 2050 – Lancet
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Why lung cancer is a ‘hidden epidemic’ in sub-Saharan Africa
Male breast cancer predicted to rise in Africa – large Chinese analysis