Cancer is not a death sentence, doctors and survivors have said, as CancerServe took cancer screening, treatment awareness and other health services closer to rural communities during a medical retreat held at Karanda Mission Hospital in Mt Darwin on Friday.

The outreach, held in partnership with Karanda Hospital and other health professionals, brought together oncologists, radiologists, cancer survivors and eye-care specialists, with organisers urging communities to abandon fear and seek screening and treatment early.

Clinical oncologist Kudzai Makola said late presentation remains one of the biggest challenges in Zimbabwe's fight against cancer.

“Cancer is not a death sentence,” Dr Makola said, noting that the majority of patients seen in Zimbabwe arrive with locally advanced or stage four disease.

He said cervical cancer remains the most common cancer among women in Zimbabwe, while prostate cancer is the most common among men, with breast cancer ranking among the country's leading cancers and affecting both women and men.

Makola emphasized that persistent infection with high risk strains of human papillomavirus (HPV) is the major risk factor for cervical cancer, making vaccination and screening critical tools in preventing the disease.

According to Makola   Zimbabwe has a population based HPV vaccination programme targeting girls of school going age, while cervical cancer screening provides an opportunity to identify abnormal changes before they develop into invasive cancer.

“Screening, cervical cancer screening, becomes a very important opportunity to detect those changes that are brought about by that infection with HPV, some of them that might actually indicate that cancer might be developing,” he said.

.CancerServe founder and chairperson Dr Anna Mary Nyakabau explained  that prevention, screening and early treatment were central to reducing the country's cancer burden.

She said preventing infections such as HIV and HPV, including through vaccination, as well as controlling conditions such as schistosomiasis, could prevent a significant proportion of cancers.

“If you prevent cancer, that means a third of the cancers will not happen,” Dr Nyakabau said.

She urged  that cervical cancer offered one of the clearest opportunities for prevention because precancerous changes can take years to progress to invasive cancer.

“When you screen and it's a pre-invasive cancer, you can treat it simply, maybe by just freezing, by heating, or even just a small cut. And it's not costly. It doesn't cause a lot of discomfort to the patient. They continue with their lives. They did not get cancer. It was pre-cancer,” she said.

She also challenged communities to overcome the stigma and fear surrounding cancer, saying negative experiences often discourage people from screening.

“Cancer is not a death sentence,” she said. “We have so many people, in fact, people who have been around for 20, 30 years after a diagnosis and treatment of cancer.”

That message was reinforced by 58-year-old Gladys Fainoza, who has lived for 20 years after being diagnosed with breast cancer.

Fainoza said she first felt a lump in her breast in 2003 but ignored it because she did not want it to interfere with her studies.

By the time she sought medical attention, the lump had grown and become painful. A biopsy eventually confirmed that she had cancer.

She underwent surgery and chemotherapy before travelling to Pretoria, South Africa, for radiotherapy because of challenges with radiotherapy equipment locally at the time.

Fainoza said the experience was difficult, particularly because of the financial burden placed on her family, but she credits a positive mindset and determination to survive for helping her through treatment.

“I just developed a positive mindset because I accepted the condition, and I said the condition is on me, so I have to fix it,” she said.

Now in remission and attending annual medical examinations, Fainoza said her experience had taught her the importance of seeking medical attention early.

“Early diagnosis is better because it's less expensive. If you wait for it to be on advanced stage, it will be difficult to treat and very, very expensive. So early diagnosis is the best in life,” she said.

Another breast cancer survivor, 59-year-old Anastasia Rutendo Balzam, was diagnosed in 2019 and underwent a mastectomy followed by six cycles of chemotherapy.

She described chemotherapy as one of the toughest periods of her life, saying she became extremely weak and was unable to work for almost a year.

“I couldn't walk. I couldn't talk,” Balzam said, describing the impact of treatment.

Her experience, however, has also become part of the wider message that cancer can be treated and survived.

The outreach also highlighted the importance of decentralising cancer services so that patients in rural areas do not have to travel long distances for every aspect of their care.

Cancerserve  founder Nyakabau said Karanda was chosen because of its distance from Harare and the large number of patients it serves, including those requiring cancer care.

She said CancerServe's partnership with the hospital was intended to strengthen referral pathways and bring elements of cancer screening, early detection and treatment closer to patients.

“We are actually bringing at least the initiation of services and the awareness raising, the early detection to the patient, such that the patients don't have to travel long distances to come, say, to the referral centre,” she said.

CancerServe has also supported cancer patients at Parirenyatwa Radiotherapy Centre through initiatives including access to tamoxifen for women with hormone sensitive breast cancer, cisplatin for cervical cancer patients, chemotherapy chairs, food hampers and support infrastructure for social workers.