By Haruna Gimba
A leading science and technology company, has announced the start of the first Merck Africa Medical Oncology Fellowship Program for Sub-Saharan African countries in partnership with University of Nairobi, Kenya.
According to a statement distributed by African Press Organisation (APO), the program will be conducted at the university as part of Merck’s efforts to improve access to cancer care and strengthen the healthcare system in emerging markets.
Health Reporters gathered that the program aims to improve access to cancer care in Africa and increase number of oncologists on the continent.
In a first step, Merck Group will sponsor nine medical doctors from Sub-Saharan African countries such as Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia and South Africa for a period of two years.
The program is expected to be extended to other African countries in the following year.
Moreover, Merck will support another five African doctors to participate in a paediatric and adult medical fellowship program, which will be held annually at Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai, India. This program will start in August this year.
Chief Social Officer of the healthcare business sector of Merck, Rasha Kelej, said the company is committed to improving patient’s access to healthcare all over the world.
He said: “In Africa, where the number of oncologists is very limited, this starts by building additional medical capacity. Our new program aims to increase the number of qualified oncologists across the continent.
“The scarcity of trained healthcare personnel capable of tackling prevention, early diagnosis and management of cancer is a bigger challenge in Africa than the lack of financial resources. Therefore we firmly believe that initiatives like ours are very helpful for Africa and also in a further step for more developing countries.”
Merck over the past years has significantly stepped up its activities on the African continent with an expected doubling of sales by 2020.
Principal of Colleges of Health Sciences, University of Nairobi, Professor Isaac Kibwage, said the only way to effectively prevent, detect and treat the rising number of cancer cases in Africa is through establishing public private partnerships between health ministries, academia, and industry in implementing successful programs such as the partnership with Merck.
“This fellowship program will not only target Kenyan doctors but doctors from Sub-Saharan African countries as well with the aim of improving the quality and accessibility of cancer care in the continent,” he said.
The shortage of oncologists threatens cancer care in Africa. According to World Health Organization (WHO), by 2020 there are expected to be 16 million new cases of cancer every year, 70 per cent of which will be in developing countries where governments are least prepared to address the growing cancer burden and where survival rates are often less than half those of more developed countries.
According to research done by Merck, Kenya only has 13 oncologists, most of them based in Nairobi for a population of 47 million, which means one oncologist per 3.6 million people.
