The Chinese government today (Monday) donated cervical cancer screening equipment worth $500 000 to help boost Zimbabwe’s health delivery system.
Officiating at the handover ceremony, Health and Child Care Minister, Dr David Parirenyatwa said the donated equipment will help prevent the ever increasing number of cervical cancer cases in the country.
“The developed world has managed to reduce the incidents of cervical cancer through the use of cytology based screening,
“The equipment donated is worth USD$500 000 and we have been hungering for it to diagnose cancer of the cervix,
“Equipment in key in the health ministry. Cytology was first in the first world and has now come here,” said Parirenyatwa.
In Sub Saharan Africa 1 in 4 countries are able to give this kind of service of screening and diagnosing and Zimbabwe is now one of them.
“According to the Cancer registry of Zimbabwe, cervical cancer remains the commonest cancer among women in Zimbabwe accounting for 33% of cancers in women,
“Cervical cancer is the dominant malignancy in the black female population of Harare (26.6%) according to statistics derived from our national Cancer registry,
“It is very unfortunate however that in spite of this, a recent demographic Health Survey showed rather poor uptake of cervical cancer screening in Zimbabwe with only 13% of the population taking up the idea,” added Parirenyatwa.
Chinese Ambassador, Huang Ping said his government will continue to support Zimbabwe in areas of Health, Agriculture and Education.
“China and Zimbabwe enjoy profound relations and China have spared no effort in helping Zimbabwe,
“We hope this initiative will help in promoting the control and treatment of cervical cancer in Zimbabwe,
“For the past 20 years the Chinese government has constructed one hospital in Chinhoyi, one in Mahusekwa, donated three batches of medical equipment with 14 million and dispatched a total of 140 doctors and experts,” said Ping.
Over 1000 women have registered for the early cervical cancer screening and treatment at Parirenyatwa Hospital.
