Den ondartede sygdom høster flere dødsofre i det østafrikanske land end trafikulykker – og alligevel kan den standses, hvis bare folk kommer i behandling i tide, men uendeligt mange kvinder aner intet om, hvilken lidelse, de går rundt med.
GULU, 25 June 2012 (IRIN): In the obstetrics (fødsels) and gynaecology ward of St Mary’s Hospital Lacor in northern Uganda’s Gulu District, Apilli Kilara lies on the floor under a blood-stained sheet, staring at the ceiling.
Kilara, 43, and the mother of seven children, is in the advanced stages of cervical cancer (livmoderhalskræft).
“I started experiencing funny itching (kløen) in my private parts after my fifth delivery (nedkomst) in 2007. In November 2011 when I delivered my seventh child, I began noticing an on-and-off sharp pain in my pelvis (bækkenparti) with sudden bleeding in between my periods (menstruationer),” she told IRIN.
“The pain and bleeding did not stop, that is when I started imagining something was wrong with me.”
If Kilara had sought medical help when her symptoms first started, she could have been treated successfully, but she knew nothing of cervical cancer at the time. As it is, the doctors fear she may not live much longer.
Lying next to her is another patient diagnosed with cervical cancer; Akello (not her real name) is 39, and when her symptoms started, she thought witchcraft was behind them, and sought treatment from a local healer.
“I had been visiting a traditional herbalist (urteklog) for treatment in vain, that is what women suffering similar ailments (lidelser) in my village do,” she said.
Cervical cancer is the most common form of cancer affecting Ugandan women.
According to the UN World Health Organization (WHO), every year 3.577 women are diagnosed with cervical cancer and 2.464 die from the disease.
By comparison, 1.100 women die of breast cancer every year, according to the Uganda Women’s Health Initiative (UWHI). To put this figure into further context, 2.594 people in Uganda died in road accidents in 2010).
About 33,6 percent of women in the general population are estimated to harbour cervical human papillomavirus infection (HPV = vortevirus) – the main cause of cervical cancer – at any given time.
Limited treatment capacity
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http://www.irinnews.org/Report/95727/UGANDA-Cervical-cancer-silent-killer
