Nigeria Advances National Cancer Control Efforts

Category : Tell us your Story | Sub Category : Tell us your Story Posted on 2025-10-02 10:55:14

An international assessment has found that Nigeria has made significant progress in advancing its National Cancer Control Programme over the past decade, with steady improvements in expanding access to care for millions of people. The country is strengthening institutional responses, increasing resource allocation, and building its oncology workforce and services to better address its growing cancer burden.

The imPACT Review—conducted by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the World Health Organization (WHO), and the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) at the request of the Nigerian government—evaluated the nation’s current health system readiness for cancer care, measuring progress since the previous review in 2011.

With a population of over 220 million people, Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa, spread across 900,000 square kilometers. However, health services remain unevenly distributed, heavily concentrated in urban centers, making access challenging for many Nigerians living outside major cities.

Noncommunicable diseases, including cancer, represent a major public health challenge. According to IARC’s 2022 estimates, Nigeria records nearly 128,000 new cancer cases annually, highlighting the urgent need for strengthened cancer prevention, diagnosis, and treatment services nationwide.