Congo Brazzaville: Health experts meet on cancer control programmes

A regional conference on cancer registration and National Cancer Control Programme for African French speaking countries opens in Congo Brazzaville.

According to the Congolese Ministry of Health and Population, health experts from 36 countries including Africa, Europe, the Americas and the Caribbean are expected to attend.

The aim of the conference is to establish quality-assurance and sustainable population-based cancer registries (PBCR) in some selected countries.

The meeting is also expected to strengthen existing PBCRs in francophone African countries to reinforce the linkage between cancer registries and cancer control planning.

The annual meeting comes barely a week after the commemoration of World Cancer Day.

According to the WHO, about 715,000 new cancer cases and 542,000 cancer deaths were recorded in 2008 alone in Africa.

This figure is expected to double in the next 20 years due to the “aging and growth of the population”.