Modern life, bad habits: Africa faces deadly new illnesses

“To me, cancer was nowhere near us. It
was shocking, I feared death, I feared so many things,” the 46-year-old
Kenyan school teacher told AFP.
Rose is one of a growing number of
Africans suffering from cancer, one of the lifestyle diseases — along
with diabetes and heart problems — proving increasing deadly on the
continent.
A World Health Organisation (WHO) survey
released Tuesday showed that most Africans had at least one risk factor
for developing one of these diseases, such as smoking, a lack of
exercise, poor diet and obesity.
Women were most at risk, the study showed.
After Rose underwent a mastectomy of her
left breast, watched her hair fall out and nails grow black under
chemotherapy, she was declared cancer-free.
But her troubles were not over.
Her 64-year-old mother was already
suffering from diabetes but was “wasting away”, and Rose encouraged her
to get tested. It turned out she had pancreatic cancer.
“I think maybe mum’s lifestyle has
brought about this. She lives in Nairobi, she is not moving a lot, she
is not going to fetch water like the lady in the village,” said Rose.
Rose is now teaching her 16-year-old
daughter to exercise and not eat too much junk food, while she has taken
up free yoga and dance classes at the Faraja support centre for cancer
patients in Nairobi.
– ‘Fertile ground’ –
Nairobi, the biggest city in East
Africa, is typical of the increasingly urban lifestyle in developing
countries on the continent.
Workers spend long hours in traffic
snarls before sitting behind desks all day. Weekends are spent in
shopping malls, and western junk food such as hamburgers and pizza
abound.
The WHO study showed that in the 33
countries surveyed, most adults did not consume the recommended combined
five servings of fruits and vegetables per day.
While the tobacco, alcohol and food
industries have had to adapt to growing health-consciousness in the
West, this is not the case in Africa.
“They see Africa as a fertile ground
because of the legislation and policy weaknesses that exist in our
region, they see opportunity to make a lot of profit,” said report
author Abdikamal Alisalad.
Philip Ouma, patient support manager at Faraja, said it was not just the middle-class who were at risk.
“Initially they used to say cancer is a
disease of the rich but we are finding a lot of people who are affected
who are poor,” he said.
“There is a possibility that the diagnostic systems are better.”
According to the WHO, some four million
people will die from noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) in Africa by 2020,
and the figure will surpass those of infectious diseases by 2030.
Globally deaths from NCDs will hit 44 million by 2020.
– Year-long waiting list –
Rose said that typically, feeling sick in Africa meant you had caught an infectious disease.
“Here when people feel bad they think
maybe it is like typhoid, it is malaria. (Most) cancers present
themselves in a very funny way so it’s not often you would even think
you are suffering from cancer.”
With poor public hospitals barely able
to bear the burden of normal healthcare challenges in most African
countries, the difficulties posed by a surge in lifestyle diseases are
considerable.
In Kenya’s main government hospital,
patients can find themselves on a waiting list for up to a year to get
access to radiotherapy or chemotherapy, and often it is too late.
A local television report earlier this
year showed dozens of cancer patients, who travel from far-flung areas,
sleeping on the floor of the hospital as they have no where to go in
between therapy sessions.
“Meanwhile private hospitals have
machines that are lying idly because they are expensive but the majority
of people cannot afford them so it is a big problem,” said Ouma.
He said the wealthy from surrounding countries were lucky, they can fly to India or Nairobi which has four private hospitals.
Patients from Uganda have flocked to
Kenya ever since the country’s only radiotherapy machine broke down in
April, and others from Ethiopia, Eritrea, Tanzania, Madagascar and the
Seychelles also come to Nairobi for treatment.
“Those who cannot come, they give up and they stay at home,” said Ouma.
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