- MEWATA

Breast Cancer

Breast Cancer Campaign in Kilimanjaro-Report

We were able to screen 1036 women and no woman who came for the campaign was left, the team arrived at the station around 5:30am and found women already waiting for the services. At around 8:20am the official opening was done by the Regional commissioner for Kilimanjaro Mr.Gama together with other official of the region and Hospital as well.

A total number of 134 clients were referred to be reviewed by the surgeon of whom 123 reached to the surgeon and 107 were found to have different breasts problems as seen in the table below:

SN	PROBLEM	Frequency
1	Fibroadenoma	54
2	Ductal Papilloma	12
3	Obvious Ca Breast 7 Suscipitious Ca breast 5	12
4	Lipoma	8
5	Mastitis	6
6	Others	15
7	Total	107

MARANGU STATION

We were able to screen 257 women, no woman left unscreened. The team arrived at around 7:00 am

A total number of 20 clients were referred to be reviewed by the surgeon of whom all were found to have various breasts problem as seen in the table below:

Table 2:

SN	PROBLEM	FREQUENCY
1	Fibroadenoma	7
2	Ductal Papilloma	5
3	Obvious Ca Breast 1 Suspect Ca Breast 2	3
4	Lipoma	2
5	Others	3
6	Total	20

CHALLENGES

Screening done for one day instead of two days due to financial constraints
Women with problems seem to dislike the government referral and were so sure that MEWATA will help them
Others were crying Phase II & III Big Challenge for MEWATA

Download the report in [PDF]

Breast Cancer campaigns

In commemoration of the International Women’s Day (IWD) and Tenth Anniversary of Beijing Declaration, MEWATA revived breast cancer awareness and screening campaign for women, such that three areas have also been covered:

1) Dar es Salaam region in March 2005
2) Mwanza region in September 2005.
3) Mbeya region in November 2006

The programme is structured in three main phases:

1) Phase 1 – Mass Screening of women
2) Phase 2 – Special Clinics – Clinical Investigations and Diagnosis
3) Phase 3 – Treatment (Surgical and Chemotherapy/Hormonal therapy and Radiation therapy)

The programme was mainly implemented by Tanzanian women medical doctors and dental practitioners who are members of the association. Other health professionals that included nurses and male medical doctors were also incorporated in the team. Close partnership of MEWATA and a private media company ITV/Radio-One made the mass media campaign quite successful.

MEWATA Report on Breast Cancer Awareness & Screening in Tanzania 2005-2008