 Thank you so much for watching the breakfast on Plus TV Africa and right now it's time for our next hot topic. We're talking about protecting our children on International Childhood Cancer Day. Today is the 15th of February and it's known as the day for raising awareness for international childhood cancer for our kids and we're just talking about how to protect them. Now joining us to have this conversation is Dr Kiki, or merely she is a medical practitioner. Hi, good morning, happy to have you. We know you wear many hats, you're an actor, you're also a doctor. How is that first? You know, having to do this whole doctor thing and raising awareness for this childhood cancer. Okay, so I'm a trained medical doctor, somewhere along the line I started acting. It is my passion and it's what I do and it's what saves my bills and puts food on the table. However, I mean my training is so very much there and I'm passionate about getting the word out. So I like to use my platform as an actor to basically spread the word about healthy living. So yeah, that's how those two things come together. That's amazing. Well it's good that you know you're using your platform to do all of this things because I mean it's just helping people, helping humanity really. So let's talk about International Childhood Cancer Day. What is this day about? I know most times for almost everything you have a day, you have international events day, you have the day for the girl child, for the boy child, you know, almost everything. Boy child is not the reading thing, it's always girls, girls. Not reading? Yeah. I think that the the females just make a lot more noise about that day. Yeah, we make a lot more noise about Mother's Day because there's Father's Day as well, but we make a lot more noise about that. I think guys don't really care about this. Yeah, they don't really care. Yeah, they're so cool. Calm down. I'm here. But yes, like I was asking, so what is this day for exactly? Yeah, because we have cancer awareness month, we have survival cancer day and now we still have international childhood cancer day. Yeah, so childhood cancer is something that needs a lot of awareness because most children that come down with cancer can't even speak. You have toddlers, sometimes even babies, some babies are born with cancer. So there has to be a day, you know, for that awareness, people that have children, parents need to be aware of the things that they need to look out for to get an early diagnosis because for childhood cancer, the earlier a cancer is diagnosed, the better the chances of survival, especially in developed countries, there's about an 80% survival rates for childhood cancers. But most of this would depend on an early diagnosis. So these days, the day just sets aside, you know, basically to create a lot of awareness about childhood cancer. Yeah, but creating awareness is one thing. Even if you find out that the child has cancer, what do you do in Nigeria? Because you talk about developed countries, Nigeria is not one of them. Well, so I said there's an 80% survival rate in developed countries. In developing countries like Nigeria, it's about 20% for several reasons. That's quite low. Late diagnosis is one of the reasons. So when you say, even if you find out what do you do, if you know what your problem is, then you can take steps towards solving it. But unfortunately, in a country such as Nigeria, one of the problems may be funds, you know, so that's why foundations such as the one I'm representing today, Academy of Cancer Foundation, that's why they exist to kind of help people who are unable to pay for their cancer treatment. And sometimes you also encourage people that even if you don't have a foundation or you're not going to work with the foundation, sometimes you can just go to a hospital around your area if you want to help, you know, just help one or two people so it goes a long way. Yeah, but how do we even access the facilities that will help us find out about children with cancer? Okay, so one of the things I'm here to talk about today are the things that, you know, the signs, some of the early warning signs that you could see that could maybe point you in that direction that this might be something to check out. Yeah, I was about to even ask that. Yeah, yeah. So one of the things would be an unexplained fever lasting maybe two weeks or more. You know, usually if someone had like malaria or some kind of infection, you know, yeah, then the fever would be explained. But if a child has a fever for no reason that you can, you can see and is lasting for a long time, there's something you might want to check out. Also things like weight loss, swelling in any part of the body, arms, legs, abdomen, face, you know, jaw line. And you know, there was previously no trauma because sometimes if a child should be playing and you know, he hits one part of the body then he swells, you know, but if there was nothing like that and there's just this swelling that is unexplained, it might be something to check out. Also for some children, they have like a white spot in the eye depending on the kind of cancer. So if you notice, you know, white spots in the child's eye that was previously not there, maybe something to check out as well. A squint that wasn't there before, headaches that might come with vomiting, seizures, easy bruising, you know, there are so many things that could point to childhood cancer. This is not to say, however, that if you see all these signs, this is not to say that it means it's cancer, it's just that, you know, it's worth checking out, yeah. And as to what to do, you go to the hospital. If you're going to go to the private hospital, you have the teaching hospitals or the general hospitals that offer services as well. Yeah, but it's not every hospital that offers these services. Maybe you are in the village, for instance, and you've seen these signs and accessing this is quite difficult. This is true. This is true. This is why we have things like referrals. So if you go to, say, a health center and they are unable to handle it, then they refer you to a facility that is equipped to handle these things. But like I keep saying, in a developing country such as this one, many times people are hampered by funds. Yeah, so this is where well-meaning individuals like you and I can actually help. Okay, so let's talk about the role of technology. How can technology help with all of these things too? You know, just for the advancement of prognosis, because most times the reason why people die, that's not just even children right now. The reason why people die from cancer is because they never really detected early enough. So what does technology do to actually help? And they say that they're age people, right? And all these signs are showing that they're age people. When you're asking what technology can do, what occurred to me is right now we're on TV and you know, it's technology and we're talking and people can actually hear. We're using awareness. Yeah, yeah, there's somebody somewhere thinking to themselves, oh, I might have noticed that in my child, maybe I need to check this out. So even just raising awareness on TV, on the radio, just the media generally, that's one of the things that technology can do towards the diagnosis of childhood cancer. But also in hospitals, I mean, you have all the radio therapy and the chemotherapy, that's all technology really. So since it's international childhood cancer awareness day, do we have partnerships with international bodies, people who we just partner with? For instance, I know there's cancer research UK. So do they partner with developing countries such as Nigeria to make sure that we'll raise you more awareness and ensuring that children are not dying of cancer? Well, truth be told, many of the foundations that exist for cancer awareness in Nigeria, many of them should I say, like individual, many of them are formed because of personal reasons. For example, the Acanimo Cancer Foundation was established because of a young boy, Acanimo, who I mean, very bright young boy that previously had no issues. His father is actually a doctor, a senior colleague of mine. At the time, I was doing my house job in University College Hospital in Badon. And after his 10th birthday, he just complained of constipation and abdominal discomfort. And then, you know, he went for an ultrasound scan and boom, cancer. Yeah. And it was a rare kind of cancer. He was medically flown to the United States. He fought for two years. You know, unfortunately, he passed. You know, he only lived two years because he was in the US. He had been in Nigeria probably with him last day that long. Yeah. So his parents established this foundation just to kind of get the word out there. What the points are making with all this is that most of the time these foundations are actually personal. Something like Cancer Research UK, I don't know how interested they would be, you know, in partnering with. So it would be if anything like that were to happen, it would be these foundations reaching out to them to see how they could be collaboration. How would you describe the infrastructure, the available infrastructure in Nigeria to fight this? I understand the federal government is even thinking about adding cancer treatments to the NHS. But for now, how would you describe the infrastructure? Do we have enough? What needs to be done? Do we have enough? We definitely don't. We definitely don't. In terms of even radiotherapy machines in the entire Nigeria, I don't think we are more than three or five. So we definitely don't. It's not something that you really want to have in a country such as this one, which is why we are talking about early diagnosis. Because like I keep saying, the earlier you diagnose it, then the better this can be handled. Yeah, in terms of infrastructure, no, we're really not equipped. We need to do so much more. But who should be at the banger? Is it the private sector or government? Government, because cancer is such an expensive disease. It's not something I feel like private sectors can. Well, maybe except for, you know, maybe corporate bodies that can actually afford it. Maybe like the banks, maybe some form of CSR. Well, I definitely really think it's something the government needs to look into because cancer is so much more common now than it ever used to be. Maybe because of our diets, maybe because of things we're consuming. You know, who really knows? Yeah, yeah, yeah, who really knows. And unfortunately, we childhood cancer on like adult cancers where you would usually have, you know, a reason why it exists, maybe family history or maybe consumption or whatever. With childhood cancer, there's no clear evidence of cause. Yeah, many children are just born with cancer for whatever reason. You can't really put your finger on why this child has cancer. Unfortunately, for childhood cancers, you only have about two percent that you could claim that maybe have some kind of parental hereditary. Yeah, in about 95 to 98% of cases, there's no clear reason why. Okay, so what steps can the government take? Because now we're saying government has a lot, has a big role to play in all of this. So what steps can the government take to ensure that, you know, the facilities, the infrastructure that we need to be able to fight this disease out for children? And I mean, everyone at LAD, because every life matters. So what kind of government starts to do to ensure that we can, you know, just the necessary steps? Yeah, so I think in terms of allocation, because many times you see a budget, how much of the budget is allocated to healthcare? Okay. Yeah, I don't know about you, but I don't see anything impressive in that area. So I think the teaching hospitals are available to the masses because not a lot of people can afford private healthcare. So for the teaching hospitals available to the masses, I think they need to be equipped to really therapy machines, you know, and things that people we can't actually need for like a good diagnosis and treatment. I personally was never impressed, you know, while I practiced medicine, I was personally never impressed with the things that we put in place for the handling of cancer. Also, whenever the government takes on a cause, you know, people tend to hear about it because they go as far as to the grassroot level, you know, just to try to get the word out there. So if they take on HIV, for instance, they go out of their way, all the radio jingles, you know, they put it in a language that people can't understand. So these things are expensive to do. So I think first things first, you know, is awareness. The reason why many people don't survive cancer is late diagnosis. If you don't know what to look out for and you're just at home until you become so bad and then you get to the hospital when it's late, there's not a lot that can be done. So I think in terms of awareness, getting the word out there and then also just allocating the funds for treatment. So you talked about diagnosis, how often should you have like, I know people say go check your yourself at least once a year. Well, when you think of the cost, right, you know, healthcare is quite expensive here in Nigeria compared to other countries where it's almost free. So how do you even start to look for this science, you know, for yourself? Because I know it's for kids that we're talking about, but even for yourself, how do you start to look at for this science and, you know, quickly go to the hospital to ensure early detection. Okay, so for adults or for women, for things like breast cancer, there's a breast self-examination that you can do. I mean, pretty much, yeah, you can do that by yourself and if you see anything untoward then, you know, you know what to do. Also for things like cervical cancer, the pap smear is quite expensive, but you don't have to do a pap smear. If you just want to find out if there's something wrong, there's something called, you know, a test you can do with Lugol's iodine, where they just kind of swap the cervix and if they see anything untoward then they want to take like, you know, further investigations and all that. So these are just a few of the things and then like I said, you know, the same way I'm saying, you know, watch your child closely, also watch yourself closely. Some of these signs, you know, cancer signs also exist in adults, all the unexplained fever and weight loss and all that. So I know that, you know, preventive medicine can be expensive because having to go to the hospital on a yearly basis to perform all these tests, I know it's expensive, but I mean, just as far as you can or as much as you can, just do what you can. You know, when we talk about the government making sure that these facilities are available, what would you say about the manpower that can handle this? Does it need specialized manpower? This is another topic entirely because even the doctors all seem to have delivered. So this is a different topic entirely. You know, it's unfortunate, but I don't think that this country in particular actually provides professionals with incentives to stay. It's unfortunate, but in terms of specialized manpower, I think that many of these things, I think people can be trained, you know, to be able to use these machines. But then for the doctors who have to, you know, provide the diagnosis and recommend the treatment and all that, I don't know, they seem to be living in droves. So this... We still have you, so. Well, you're sharing me, you're sharing me with the screen. If we run to you, you will say, okay, yeah, because anywhere on the plane and someone gets a heart attack. So you're always kicking and all that. Okay. So what would you say about the success story so far? When you talk about awareness of this childhood cancer, do people really know about it or what needs to be done? Well, I wouldn't say that a lot of people know. The educated people probably do, but many times when we do awareness like this, we also wanted to get to the grassroot level because cancer, you know, is a cross-bord. It doesn't know educational background. It doesn't know social background and all that. So do people really know about it? I think that a lot of work just needs to be done in terms of awareness. And I'm really hoping that as a result of my being here today, you know, somebody somewhere will say, you know, I think I notice this so that's on my child, you know, and do what they need to do. So there's a lot more that needs to be done. And even now that I've spoken to you guys, I'm sure you guys can also help to get that right out of there. Yeah, even if it's not on TV, you know, just spread the word to other people. But let's talk about the role of education. Now, do you think this is something that should even be done in schools, like raising that awareness in schools? Like maybe even into the curriculum or something. And they should just learn about it since we're seeing that it's prevalent in, you know, our world today. So is this something that when we go to schools, you know, your teachers, your, for instance, there's biology, right? So are there teachers that are going to be teaching about these things, you know, finding out for yourself if in case there's anything you can notice easily for you to be able to go to the hospital? Yeah, I mean, when we went to school, there was no such thing, probably because the prevalence of cancer at that time, you know, it wasn't as bad as it is now. But curriculums can be adjusted curricula. Yeah, they can be revised. You understand. So I do think it's necessary for things like that to be taught in schools, because there's nothing like too much education. And that's even for the educated people. I keep talking about the people that don't go to school, because they have cancer as well. So we need to just find a way to keep getting the word out there. Yeah, we'd like to thank like their kind of more foundation and every other foundation that is doing this, because most times, not even most times, they do it out of passion, they do it out of a story that like you told this one and all that. So we'd like to encourage them. But we're always interested in what beats we can contribute, not just seeing it here for one day and all that. So what does a foundation, for instance, like the one you belong to do, that you think media houses and other people who have the privilege to listen to this, to see this happen, what can we do to make sure that the evangelism I'd like to put in goes further than what you do. Okay. So some of the things that the foundation does, apart from creating awareness like this, is to actually help people with their bills. You know how I keep talking about funds being a major barrier to treatment and early diagnosis. So this foundation at the moment is sponsoring about five children who, yeah, down with cancer and you're paying all the bills and all that and hoping to do more. However, foundations also need funds, right? So that's why we keep talking about well-meaning individuals, either helping the foundation or even just on your own. Yes, just go to, I promise you, if you're walking to any hospital, there are people that need help. They can't pay their bills and you can be of help in somewhere. All right. Thank you so much. This is where we have to wrap it up today and I hope like, I mean, someone somewhere have heard all of this and they're doing their bit and we hope that well-meaning Nigerians will come out and start to support so financially and even also volunteering as well. I'd like to add, thank you so much. I just wanted to say how to reach out to the foundation if, yeah, so on Instagram and Facebook, it's Acanimo Cancer Foundation. That's A-K-A-N-I-M-O-C-A-N-C-E-R-F-O-U-N-D-A-T-I-O-N. So when you get there, you'll get the help that you need and we hope that all these foundations, not just Acanimo Foundation, will get the funding that they need to get to do what they are doing. And if you are having the way with all, please, you can also, like she said, walk into a hospital, do your bit off, get the foundation yourself so that people can access whatever you are able to get. All right, here's what we have to wrap it up on the breakfast today. We'll be taking it to Dr. Kiki Omeali, who's a medical practitioner. I'm just talking about protecting our children on the International Childhood Cancer Day, which is today the 15th of February. Anyways, we'll see you again tomorrow. This is where we end the show today. And we'll see you again tomorrow. Tomorrow's going to be Friday, Friday, for instance. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, my name is Bermet Paulsen. And I am Nyam Gull, I guide you. See you tomorrow. Bye.