Over 500,000 cancer deaths recorded in Africa in 2022
The World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Director for Africa, Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, has said that various cancer diagnoses claimed the lives of over half a million people on the African continent in 2022 alone.
In her message commemorating World Cancer Day, Moeti revealed that approximately 882,882 new cancer cases were reported in the WHO African Region, resulting in around 573,653 deaths.
"About 50% of new cancer cases in adults in Africa are due to breast, cervical, prostate, colorectal, and liver cancers. If urgent measures are not taken, cancer mortality in the region is projected to reach about one million deaths per year by 2030. Also, in 20 years, cancer death rates in Africa will overtake the global average of 30%. This is more so because cancer survival rates in the WHO African region currently average 12%, much lower than the average of over 80% in High-Income Countries,” Moeti said in a statement.
Moeti highlighted positive efforts in the fight against cancer, noting that 17 countries have implemented high-performance-based screening tests in accordance with WHO recommendations. Additionally, 28 Member States have introduced nationwide Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination, aiming to reach approximately 60% of the priority population targeted for HPV vaccination.
“We call on the region’s countries, communities, partners, and civil society to unite and foster universal access to cancer prevention and care. Stakeholders must identify feasible priorities, implement evidence-based population-wide interventions, and invest in cancer control,” said Moeti.
Further, new data released by the WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer highlighted disparities in the cancer burden among developed nations. In countries with a very high Human Development Index (HDI), a metric assessing achievements in health, education, and standard of living, the statistics reveal that 1 in 12 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer and 1 in 71 will succumb to it. In contrast, low-HDI countries exhibit lower breast cancer diagnosis rates (1 in 27 women) but higher mortality rates (1 in 48), primarily attributed to late-stage diagnosis and limited access to treatments.
