Cancer treatment in Africa could improve if governments share data and negotiated better prices — Quartz

lterrat's bookmarks 2017-01-02

Summary:

"ancer is becoming more common across Africa, but the continent’s doctors and policy makers are barely equipped to provide adequate treatment. New cancer cases are expected to double by 2030 to around 1.3 million, according to an American Cancer Society (ACS) study (PDF). If national cancer treatment strategies aren’t fixed, only 10% of patients will receive treatment, including basic pain medication.

The data is scarce, and the resources needed to deal with the problem even more so. What we do know is that there were 512,400 cancer deaths in 2008, and 681,000 new cases of cancer in that year, according to the ACS. That number is much lower than in the developed world, but the concern is it’s rising—and there’s a severe lack of proper treatment. In addition, few countries have working cancer registries, making it difficult to track diagnoses and treatment.

Even worse, a critical lack of oncologists and even fewer treatment centers makes treating cancer even more challenging. When designing a treatment system, oncologists have borrowed from the US and Europe, which has proven ineffective in adapting to African healthcare needs, says Meg O’Brien, director of Global Cancer Treatment for the ACS. African cancer specialists, she says, don’t have access to the medical resources such as pathology and imaging that their US counterparts have. And where treatment is secured, public health officials find themselves overpaying by about 30% thanks to a lack of transparency in the cancer treatment market, according to ACS research.

IBM’s pro-bono project Health Corps just released a new data tool it thinks can help alleviate these issues: ChemoQuant—developed in partnership with the American Cancer Society and the Clinton Health Access Initiative, and with feedback of local oncologists and health ministries— is an easy-to-use platform that helps health ministries share information so they can get the right treatments to the right patients. It’s designed to be something of a life saving 'calculator.'"

Link:

http://qz.com/869284/sharing-data-could-help-african-governments-reduce-the-cost-of-cancer-treatment/

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Open Access Tracking Project (OATP) » lterrat's bookmarks

Tags:

oa.south oa.prices

Date tagged:

01/02/2017, 16:03

Date published:

01/02/2017, 11:03