World Child Cancer is working with doctors and nurses at the Hospital Central de Maputo to improve the diagnosis and treatment of child cancer.

Major Challenges:

• Mozambique has no dedicated paediatric oncology unit.
• The country has no specialist paediatric oncologist doctors and nurses.
• There is no data on the number of children diagnosed or current survival rates.  However, survival rates are unlikely to be above 10%.
• Many children are diagnosed too late for effective treatment. 
• Doctors suspect that many children go undiagnosed.   
• There is a high rate of abandonment of treatment because of the financial and practical problems families face during long hospital stays.    
• Many children go undiagnosed because of lack of awareness of the symptoms of child cancer.  

Project Objectives

• To improve survival rates of children with easily treatable cancers to around 50%.
  By developing locally appropriate treatment protocols which are financially viable for the hospital and practical for families.       
  Reducing the number of children who abandon treatment.
  Encouraging earlier diagnosis of child cancer.   
• To create a centre of excellence for paediatric oncology at the Hospital Central de Maputo.
• To develop satellite treatment centres in Nampula and Beira.  
• To provide effective palliative care for children with incurable cancers.

What is World Child Cancer doing to help?

• We have established a twinning partnership between Hospital Central de Maputo and experienced child cancer centres in Recife, Brazil and Edinburgh, UK.The twinning partnership is led by Dr Pedrosa from Recife and Dr Shaw from Edinburgh. They will develop a mentoring and training programme to exchange essential medical expertise and skills in paediatric oncology.   
• The project will create a dedicated child cancer ward in Maputo and satellite treatment centres in Nampula and Beira.   
• The collection of data on patients and their treatment will be improved.  This will form the foundation of the creation of a national registration scheme for child cancer patients.   
• Locally appropriate treatment protocols will be developed.
• A reliable supply of chemotherapy and palliative care drugs will be funded by World Child Cancer.   
• Support for parents will be improved through the development of the local parent support group - Associacao Sorriso da Crianca – by a twinning partnership with an experienced parent support group.

If you are a healthcare professional with specialist paediatric oncology expertise and interested in getting involved in one of our projects please click here to contact us info@worldchildcancer.org

Key Facts

• Mozambique is one of the poorest countries in the world with a per capita income of US $440 (Gross National Income (GNI), Atlas method, World Bank data 2010)
• Mozambique has a population of approximately 23 million   
• The Hospital Central de Maputo is the main teaching hospital in Mozambique providing free, quaternary healthcare for adults and children from all over the country  
• Burkitts lymphoma is the most common childhood cancer in Mozambique followed by Kaposi sarcoma which is related to HIV infection

Project Centre: Hospital Central de Maputo in Maputo
Project leader: Dr Joao Fumane and Dr Faizana Amad
Twinning Centres: Centro de Hematologia e Oncologia Pediatrica, Recife, Brazil Royal Hospital for Sick Children, Edinburgh, UK
Length of Project: Five years
Funding From World Child Cancer: £160,000 over five years