Health Cabinet Secretary Sicily Kariuki on Tuesday came out to reveal that cancer is becoming alarming.
Speaking at Citizen TV Day Break Show, the Health CS confirmed that cancer cases are increasing in the country and causing high rates of deaths among those affected.
“We are not sitting in a very good place when it terms of cancer. The numbers of cases that are detected continue to rise. Currently, we are talking about 48,000 Kenyans per year affected by cancer and of these we have also recorded 33, 000 Kenyans dying on matters related to cancer," she said.
She went ahead to note that it becomes hard to treat or even control the disease as they are recorded in hospitals at their advanced stages. The Health CS noted that Kenya has a poor doctor or health worker ratio to the patient.
She went ahead to declare that the government is working hard to make sure that this is addressed.
She pleaded with Kenyans to go for early cancer screening to make sure that the disease is detected early. When the disease is detected early, someone has chances of getting it treated.
Various prominent people have perished from this disease including former Safaricom CEO Bob Collymore who recently succumbed to cancer. Some Kenyan leaders including Kibera MP Ken Okoth are fighting this deadly disease.