IMA Taking on Cancer in Tanzania

Veronica, 9, started to rebound from Burkitt’s Lymphoma within weeks of getting her first chemotherapy treatment. The tumor on her jaw can still be seen but doctors expect her to make a full recovery.

IMA World Health/Christopher Glass

Veronica Topiasi’s face breaks easily into a wide grin. Seated on a bed next to her in the hospital, her mother laughs when she sees it.

If IMA-trained health workers hadn’t known to test for Burkitt’s Lymphoma, that smile might have been a memory. Teeth in Veronica’s lower jaw had begun to loosen. The right side of her face swelled.

In March, Veronica was diagnosed with Burkitt’s Lymphoma (BL), a highly aggressive childhood cancer that affects hundreds of children in Tanzania each year. It can cause extremely disfiguring swelling of the jaw, eyes, face and abdomen making swallowing and even blinking painful. BL attacks quickly and can be fatal within weeks if not treated promptly and appropriately.

Fortunately for Veronica and hundreds of other children with BL, IMA is providing health workers the training and chemotherapy drugs needed to treat this cancer.

After several treatments, Veronica’s tumor is beginning to shrink and doctors expect her to make a full recovery.

Most people associate cancer with the developed world but, according to the World Health Organization, 70% of people in the world who die of cancer are from low and middle income countries.

Late diagnosis and a limited supply of medicines can be a major factor in higher death rates in the developing world.

Cervical Cancer: A quiet killer in Tanzania

Sr. Margaret Ishengoma speaks with women waiting in line for cervical cancer screening on August 24th.

On August 24th, IMA and the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare launched the Cervical Cancer Prevention and Control Program at Shirati Mennonite Hospital in the western part of the country. In Tanzania, when a woman is diagnosed with cervical cancer there is only a 30 percent chance she will survive.

IMA wants to change that statistic.

The program, funded by the Izumi Foundation, has trained 11 health care workers to provide ongoing cervical cancer counseling, screening for early detection, and treatment.

More than 200 women were seen in the first four days alone.