Driven By Africa, For Africa - Improving Access to Cancer Medicines and Technologies through the African Access Initiative (AAI)

Abstract

The African continent is facing a cancer crisis. African women experience a higher burden of a deadly form of breast cancer than women of other ethnicities. [1] African men are disproportionately impacted by prostate cancer and have poor treatment outcomes. [2] Rates of cervical and liver cancer—both preventable diseases—are 300% and 24% higher, respectively, in Africa than in the United States. [3] These four cancers combined were responsible for more than one-third of all cancer deaths in Africa in 2018. [4] Without prompt intervention, the number of Africans dying from cancer annually is expected to double in twenty years. [5]