"Africa faces a new health epidemic: cancer. In 2002, there were half a million deaths from cancer in Africa. In less than 20 years that number could double to one million a year as growing tobacco usage and chronic viral infection, among other factors, inflict untold misery on a continent already fighting the ravages of HIV/Aids, TB, malaria and much else besides."
Professor David Kerr and Alan Milburn MP
In May 2007, representatives from 23 African countries met with experts and stakeholders from around the world to highlight Africa's impending cancer crisis. A new organisation, AfrOx, was established to work with African partners and co-ordinate the development of sustainable national cancer plans.
Language is Everything is proud to be supporting AfrOx. Carolyn Burgess (our chief exec) is an AfrOx founder, with responsibility for raising awareness within the business community. We're also providing practical help, such as creating a new AfrOx web site.
Other AfrOx founders are:
- Professor David Kerr — Rhodes Professor of Clinical Pharmacology and Cancer Therapeutics at the University of Oxford
- Alan Milburn MP — Secretary of State for Health from 1999 to 2003
- Professor Peter Boyle — Director of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC/WHO) in Lyon, France
- Professor Tim Eden — Professor of Teenage & Young Adult Cancer at the University of Manchester
- Dr Twalib Ngoma — Executive Director of the Ocean Road Cancer Institute in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania
- Sir John Arbuthnott — a microbiologist of 40 years standing, and former Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Strathcylde
- Princess Nikky Onyeri — Chief Executive of the Princess Nikky Cancer Trust, the foremost non-governmental organization in Nigeria
- Professor Rebecca Lingwood — Director of Continuing Professional Development at the University of Oxford
- Dr Ken Fleming — Head of the Medical Sciences Division at the University of Oxford.
You can download our 1-page briefing on AfrOx — along with the AfrOx newsletter — below. You can read more about Africa's cancer crisis here, and you can also visit the AfrOx web site.