Last Saturday in Yaounde, what was supposed to be a crowd-pulling event went on almost unnoticed because of little media attention.

Under the auspices of the NGO, Solidarité Chimeothérapie, Sochimio, thousands of Yaoundeans turned out at the main avenues of the city to draw attention to the havocs of cancer. Among the various marchers were cancer patients and, above all, those who wanted to show that although cancer continues to be a killer disease, many people can live with the disease and that treatment forms have been found to the extent that smiles can come back to the faces of cancer patients.

This is revolutionary indeed! For a very long time, association with cancer meant imminent death and those concerned with the pathology were considered to be a very heavy burden for families not only from a financial point of view because of the long stay of patients in the hospital, but also because of the emotional and stressful situation relations and loved ones were thrown into with the sheer knowledge of the fact that their beloved were virtually condemned to death.

Things have changed and radically so; because today cancer is no longer synonymous with imminent death due to advances in science and technology. Just a few days ago, the British Broadcasting Corporation, BBC, was announcing some important breakthroughs in the treatment of breast cancers. In short, in the coming months, it may be possible to treat this killer-ailment with medication available to all. This good news is not only at the international level.

Cameroonian scientists have made important head breakthroughs in the fight against cancer; to the extent that it is no longer considered a “condemned-to-death ailment.

In the referral hospitals of Yaounde and Douala and even in some Regional hospitals, cancer cases are being handled with high-level technicality which, in many cases, is providing satisfactory results for many patients. The activity organized in Yaounde last weekend was, above all, to sensitize the population about existing possibilities, so that no cancer patient should stay at home under the pretext of being condemned; because treatment protocols exist henceforth in many specialized hospitals across the country.

There is definitely a communication problem because too many Cameroonians are still frightened about cancer simply because they are unaware of these existing treatment possibilities. Of course, cancer is still a veritable killer disease, but the fright about its effects should be calmed down by these numerous possibilities offered for treatment.

Initiatives such as that organized by “Solidarité Chimiothérapie” should be encouraged because they open doors wide enough for those hundreds, sometimes thousands who continue to live in the ignorance of the fact that cancer is henceforth a curable disease.