Ethiopia inaugurates a new Cancer treatment center in Harar to provide lifesaving cancer treatment in Eastern Ethiopia. The center is located in Harar’s Hiwot Fana Specialized University Hospital, a teaching hospital for Haramaya University’s College of Health and Medical Sciences.
Previously, the Tikur Anbessa specialized hospital was Ethiopia’s only cancer treatment center that offered ontological surgery, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy. Along with the treatment center opened in February 2022 in Jimma, Ethiopia has three oncology centers.
The center was built at the cost of 270 million ETB, of which the university-funded 70 million. The Ministry of Health equipped it with several medical supplies like a state-of-the-art 3D Radiotherapy LINAC machine.
More cancer treatment centers need to be opened in a country where almost 52,000 cancer deaths are registered annually. In 2020, the international agency on Cancer Research reported that Ethiopia has over 77,000 new cancer cases, the majority being cervical and breast cancer. Out of these, only 15% of these patients get access to treatment.
To tackle this, the National Cancer Control Plan aims to open seven oncology centers across Ethiopia in 2022. The National Cancer Control Plan hopes to increase HPV vaccination for schoolgirls and primary care cervical cancer screening with the new facilities.
