Health Partnership for Childhood Cancer

Country: Cameroon

Key Contact: Professor Tim Eden

World Child Cancer works to improve services for children with cancer and their families in low-middle income countries, including Cameroon. WCC builds and sustains partnerships between paediatric oncology units in low-middle income countries with those in high-income countries whose staff are able to volunteer to provide training and mentorship in skills that are essential to care for children with cancer aiming to reduce abandonment of treatment; raise awareness of childhood cancer; improve treatment and diagnosis and improve the provision of palliative care.

World Child Cancer has been actively supporting three rural Cameroon Baptist Convention hospitals since 2012. Prof Peter Hesseling from Stellenbosch University/ Tygerberg Children’s Hospital in South Africa and his team including Beryl Thyer Memorial Africa Trust in the UK have been visiting Cameroon for more than 10 years and have achieved success in raising survival rates for Burkitt lymphoma from 0 to 60% in this time. More recently, a team from Leeds Teaching Hospitals, led by nurse Rachel Hollis, have joined the partnership, adding expertise in nursing and surgery to the training. Dr Francine Kouya who recently qualified as a paediatric oncologist is leading this work in Cameroon.

In 2018, the Cameroon Paediatric Oncology Group (CPOG), a collaboration of the key paediatric oncology stakeholders working to develop services for children throughout the country in Cameroon, was established and is being supported by WCC.

Alongside these partnerships, World Child Cancer’s programme in Cameroon includes improving facilities, raising community awareness of childhood cancer and working with traditional healers to improve the rate of diagnosis. WCC is providing holistic support to patients and their families and recently funded a family support home to provide accommodation during treatment.  

World Child Cancer welcome expressions of interest from volunteers trained in a variety of disciplines from medicine and nursing to play therapy and physiotherapy.  

Contact: Professor Tim Eden, Tim.eden@edentob.co.uk

Job Title: Emeritus Professor of Paediatric and Adolescent Oncology

Overseas Partner: Cameroon Baptist Convention Hospitals – Mutengene, Banso and Mbingo

Project Website: http://www.worldchildcancer.org