Abuja, 25 February, 2021 - The World Health Organization is strengthening collaboration with the office of Kebbi State Governor’s wife to champion early cancer detection, improvement of the chances of successful treatment and create awareness for the purpose of eliminating the deadly disease.

The WHO Country Representative (WR), Dr Walter Kazadi Mulombo in a recent virtual meeting with Dr Zainab Bagudu, Kebbi state’s First Lady agreed to leverage on the established advocacy work by Dr Bagudu to empower populations at risk, to make informed and positive choices about promoting their health.
 
Through the Medicaid Cancer Foundation which she founded, the Governor’s wife champions Cancer control, especially cancers affecting women and has mobilized resources through several advocacy visits to government officials  and most recently, led the advocacy on inclusion of cancer screening and treatment in the benefit package of the National Health Insurance Scheme.  

Following her presentation, which showed success recorded, lessons learnt and residual challenges, the Kebbi state First Lady solicited for the alignment of her Foundation’s overall objectives with WHO’s goals towards cancer elimination goals. She specifically requested technical support for capacity building to empower health workforce for better service delivery, and promotion of women health seeking behavior especially in the rural areas.

On his part, the WR said, “. I am very impressed by your pedigree and commitment to health, especially in the area of cervical cancer. WHO in Nigeria looks forward to stronger collaboration in our journey towards achieving cervical cancer elimination and Universal Health Coverage.

He noted that the Government’s drive to revitalize PHCs is an opportunity to scale up cervical cancer screening and treatment as one of UHC package to ensure everyone accesses healthcare services. 

Dr Bagudu led commemoration of the recent launch of the WHO Global strategy on Elimination of Cervical cancer as a public health problem with lighting up of prominent places in Kebbi state including the Palace of Emir of Argungu and is a prominent champion of PHC in Nigeria. 

Technical  Contacts:
Dr SALEH, Jalal-eddeen; Email: salehj [at] who.int (salehj[at]who[dot]int); Tel: +234 703 178 1774