South Sudan Ministry of Health has raised alarm over the lack of effective early detection cancer centers in the country, contributing to the increase in cancer cases. 

Cancer comprises a range of diseases characterized by abnormal cell growth that can invade or spread to other parts of the body, in contrast to not harmful tumors, which do not spread from one part of the body to another.

Signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal bleeding, prolonged cough, unexplained weight loss, and a change in bowel movements. While these symptoms may indicate cancer, they can also have other causes.

Responding to questions about the disease in Juba on Monday, Yolanda Awel Deng highlighted that the country currently has no specialized units or centers for cancer detection and treatment, complicating the management of cancer cases.

Minister Awel however said that South Sudan’s referral centers only provide screening to people with cancer like-symptoms and when found positive, patients are referred to the neighboring countries to peruse their treatment.

“Cancer, as a whole, has actually become very much prevalent in our country because of so many reasons.  We have seen a lot of cases of cancer in our country” Yolanda said adding “We do not have a proper way of actually detecting earlier and treating it” she said.

“However, through the referral health institutions like Juba teaching hospital, we have screening and also when women go to primary health care centers, our health care personnel are very well equipped to try and help women screen themselves” Awel added.

She noted that “The problem is that when we screen and detect that you have cancer or detect something that you think is cancer, we don’t have a proper unit to be able to treat it. We send these people outside” she added.

The minister acknowledged that so many lives are being lost to cancer mainly because the country does not have the capacity to handle or detect the disease at an early stage. She said while most women die of breast cancer, men are also dying from the disease.

““Most of our women are dying of cancer. You know, this is both cervical and like breast cancer. And you can also see men. You know cancer is related to the liver and everything else. People are dying in silently.”

According to a report published by the global Cancer observatory body, an International Agency for Research on cancer, indicated that in 2022, the number of new cases in South Sudan was 6,874, while the number of deaths was 5,081, and prevalence 11,547.

The pie charts below show the data on the number of cancer cases in South Sudan in 2022 as per the projection of the International Agency for research on Cancer.