GSI Italia surgical mission in Ethiopia in 2017

The project for the screening of cervical cancers among women in the Dawro Konta region, in the south of Ethiopia, 500 Kilometres far from Addis Ababa, starts from the beginning of 2017. Death for uterine cancer is easy to diagnose and relatively easy to operate surgically. GSI Italia promotes this program in the region by the training of some healthcare providers able to make tests, prepare slides and entrust the laboratory technician in Dubbo hospital the task of a first cancer diagnosis. A team of doctors and Italian volunteer anesthetists will travel to Ethiopia three or four times a year to operate the positive screening cases and to train local doctors to make diagnosis and therapy in the next years.

The project

• Financiers: Tavola Valdese
• Start year: 2016

Description

The cancer problem will evolve in the world over the next two decades and in 2030 it will represent the first killer in the world, with about 12 million of victim around the world of which almost 9 million only in poor Countries. These are the previsions of the WHO, declared in the third world Congress for cancer control, organized two years ago in Cernobbio by the National Cancer Institute of Milan. The American Cancer Society estimates that in the world about 8 million people die for cancer every year, 4,3 in developing Countries. The World Health Organization, in turn, estimates that in 2020 the new cases will increase up to 16 million, of which 55% in developing Countries. In 2020, among these 8,8 million of new cases, more than one million will arise in the sub-Saharan regions. Oncological disease has become a global problem and it is an emergency in developing Countries. In these Countries “deaths for cancer will increase from 5,5 million in 2005 to 6,7 million in 2015 and to 8,9 million in 2030, while in developed Countries the deaths for cancer will increase from 2,1 to 2,5 million from 2005 to 2030”. The prevision is that “in 20 years cancers will be the first cause of death, followed by ischemic diseases and heart attack”. In developing Countries deaths related to all types of cancer will increase, but especially those related to lungs, stomach, liver and female reproductive system.

The general objective of the project is the primary prevention and treatment of gynecologic cancers, with counter-actions to the morbidity and mortality of women in Dawro Konta, in Ethiopia.

The specific objectives are:

• The training of local paramedical staff.
• The technical improvement of medical staff and the transfer of appropriate technologies.
• The launch of a territorial screening program by smear test.
• The planning of surgeries for the positive cases to cancer disease.

The health promotion, the most important subjects for the cancer control like the primary prevention, screening programs, organizational processes, control of the disease in its final phase and rehabilitation interventions, clinical guidelines and the procedure for collaboration between clinicians, researchers, patients and volunteers for the management of the disease and its consequences, are valid parameters in the north as in the south. The cancer is becoming, in fact, increasingly a global problem.