The National Institute for Cancer Research and Treatment (NICRAT) is working towards establishing a preventive clinic for cancer in each of the six geopolitical zones of the country.
The Director General of the institute, Prof. Usman Malami Aliyu, made the disclosure at the weekend in Abuja during a one-day retreat for health journalists organised by the institute in collaboration with the International Society of Media in Public Health (ISMPH).
He rued the dearth of facilities where Nigerians could go specifically for cancer screening, adding that the select tertiary hospitals for the preventive clinics will have trained health workers as well as mammography machines, ultrasound machines among others.
He said, “With the establishment of these screening clinics, we intend to have places where people could walk in and be attended to by physicians purely for screening and preventive services.”
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He said the agency was prioritising the establishment of the new six preventive cancer clinics because prevention was critical in cancer issues.
He said the agency was also partnering with the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) to train healthcare workers to provide some level of cancer services at the primary health care level.
The NICRAT DG added that the agency was also working towards establishing a centralized national cancer registry in the country, adding that doing so would help improve data management for cancer.
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