It is estimated that Fiji has forty-five new cases of child cancer annually however only half of them are seen at the health facilities.
Minister for Health and Medical Services, Rosy Akbar revealed this during two – day regional conference held in Nadi on child cancer organised by the National Child Cancer Network.
Akbar outlined the measures taken by Fiji to address child cancer cases.
“We have a training program that started in 2008 with experts at Christchurch Hospital in New Zealand and our two treatment Centres at CWM and Lautoka Hospital. This training program has helped us tremendously in treating childhood cancers with more and more children surviving cancer treatment and close to 50 percent of our Leukemia cases are now surviving”.
Akbar says during the early years, there have been poor outcomes mainly due to the late presentations to hospital, lack of good diagnostic and lack of family support resulting in repeated treatments or default in treatment.
