https://arab.news/vwc6h
I come from Nigeria, a lower-middle-income nation of 230 million people. As a cancer advocate, I witness daily how it devastates families, not because we lack the knowledge to prevent many cancers, but because we lack the resources and political will to scale lifesaving preventive measures like the HPV and hepatitis B vaccines.
It is staggering that approximately 13 percent of global cancers are caused by infectious diseases that are vaccine-preventable. Yet there is a huge difference in how countries are able to access such vaccines.
Thus, when we provide HPV and hepatitis B vaccines to countries that otherwise would be unable to access them, we are not only making a highly effective health intervention, we are also making an equity intervention. The HPV vaccine protects future women from a leading cause of cancer death in women in many low- and middle-income countries — cervical cancer. Meanwhile, cases of liver cancer have been reduced by up to 91 percent in some studies of vaccinated populations. Clearly, vaccines reduce future cancer care costs, free up health systems and keep mothers alive for their children. The ripple effects are profound — for health, for economies and for the dignity of communities.
