The Pfizer Foundation has provided $15 million investment to a three-year initiative to improve the lives of women with breast cancer in Rwanda, Ghana, and Tanzania.
The Grant funding will be provided to global health nonprofit organisations, Jhpiego and Partners in Health, to support and scale community and country-led efforts.
These are developed in collaboration with the ministries of health to address barriers to timely diagnosis, treatment, and care in these countries.
The initiative involves three main approaches, including down staging breast cancer diagnosis to ensure early detection and more treatable stages by promoting community-based screening for education.
It is also to enhance and make diagnostic services more accessible at provincial and district-level facilities and integrate screening into primary care services.
To accelerate access to treatment in support of country-led efforts, Jhpiego and partners in health would collaborate with regional health systems to shorten time between diagnosis and treatment by enhancing patient navigation and referral services through establishment of satellite clinics.
The investment would also focus on driving global engagements and learning with implementation research and evidence generation to strengthen understanding of effective breast cancer interventions, inform future investments and share learnings.
Madam Caroline Roan, the President, The Pfizer Foundation, and Senior Vice President Global Health and Social Impact, Pfizer, said through the initiative, they were exploring and scaling new ways to ensure women with the disease in Rwanda, Ghana and Tanzania had equitable access to quality care.
“We believe everyone no matter where they live, deserves access to quality healthcare,” she said, adding that The Pfizer Foundation was proud to build on the longstanding collaborations with Jhpiego and Partners In Health, to improve health systems for underserved communities around the world.
More than 2.3 million patients were diagnosed with breast cancer in 2022 alone, and although the five-year survival rate in high-income countries exceeded 90 percent, it averaged at just 40 percent in sub-Saharan Africa.
Studies show that women in low- and middle-income countries were typically diagnosed in advanced stages of the disease and may face multiple barriers to care.
They also faced complex diagnostic processes at limited healthcare facilities, shortages of trained medical professionals, financial constraints, and social stigma.
Additionally, even if diagnosed, women living with the disease in these countries could experience a six-month delay on average before starting treatment, a critical time when it could progress and become more deadly.
“While many women with breast cancer in wealthier countries have access to timely diagnostic care and treatment, far too many in sub-Saharan Africa face preventable loss due to barriers that delay access to routine cancer care,” said Dr Leslie Mancuso, President and CEO, Jhpiego.
The partnership, she said, leveraged their tools and expertise to provide care with dignity and hoped to establish a scalable model to close breast cancer care gaps wherever they persisted.
Dr Sheila Davis, Chief Executive Officer, Partners In Health, said: “Even when diagnostic technology for early-stage breast cancer is available in under-resourced settings like Rwanda, access still requires a woman to travel for hours, often by foot and, if possible, by bus or motorcycle to reach a health facility that likely won’t have the tools or trained clinicians needed to treat her”.
“This collaboration is changing that by bringing improved screening, diagnosis, and treatment directly to communities, impacting women’s health outcomes and transforming health systems at the same time”.
The initiative builds on Pfizer’s commitment to creating a world where people with cancer can live better and longer lives.
The vision of Pfizer’s Accord for a Healthier World aims to expand access to quality care and close the health equity gap by enabling access to Pfizer’s full portfolio of medicines and vaccines for which Pfizer holds global rights on a not-for-profit basis to 45 lower-income countries around the world, including Rwanda, Ghana, and Tanzania.
The mission of The Pfizer Foundation is to help build healthier communities around the world with investments in community-led partnerships and solutions to address complex global health challenges, respond to urgent health needs and empower Pfizer colleagues to make an impact where they live, work and beyond.
GNA
