Nigeria, China Deepen Cancer Care Partnership, Target 35 New Radiotherapy Machines
Princess-Ekwi Ajide
Nigeria is moving to expand cancer treatment capacity through deeper cooperation with China, including technology transfer, specialist training and the installation of 35 additional linear accelerators by 2028.
Minister of State for Health and Social Welfare, Dr Iziaq Salako, disclosed this at the LINK Global Summit on Innovation and Practice in Oncology in Beijing, where Nigeria signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Chinese radiation therapy technology company LinaTech.
Salako said the partnership would support radiotherapy technical assistance, joint research, academic exchanges and professional training, with Nigeria seeking to develop the capacity to install, maintain and eventually manufacture cancer treatment technologies locally.
He said three of six planned cancer centres of excellence had been completed and commissioned in Katsina, Enugu and Benin, while the remaining three were at various stages of development.
The minister also highlighted Nigeria’s wider cancer-control efforts, including the HPV vaccination programme, NICE-SCAN early detection initiative and financial support schemes for cancer patients.
He said Nigeria recorded an estimated 127,763 new cancer cases and 79,542 deaths in 2022, stressing that access to modern treatment remained a major challenge.
“Machines without people are monuments,” Salako said, calling for trained oncologists, medical physicists, radiotherapy technologists and biomedical engineers to support every new facility.
He said Nigeria would pursue stronger China-Nigeria hospital partnerships, advanced radiotherapy training, joint clinical trials, artificial intelligence-assisted treatment planning and local assembly and servicing of oncology equipment.
“Let this summit be remembered not for what was displayed, but for what was delivered,” he said.
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