In less developed countries, very few children receive effective treatment for Childhood Cancer. One major reason for this is that, if the disease is diagnosed at all, it is frequently at such a late stage as to make the prognosis for successful treatment very poor.

In South Africa, there are several excellent treatment centres, which use internationally accepted protocols, and achieve results comparable to hospitals in North America and Europe for similar stages of diagnosis of the illness.

However, in some of the communities, there may be over 80% of children diagnosed with tumours in the late stages, compared with some 15% in developed countries. These late-diagnosed children have a much poorer chance of being treated successfully.

In an attempt to improve this situation, the South African Children's Cancer Study Group, which includes all of the specialist paediatric oncologists in the country, has prepared a set of Warning Signs.

These have been made into posters, in English, Zulu, Xhosa and South Sotho which are being distributed to the Primary Health Care Clinics across the country, starting initially in the northernmost provinces.

A toll-free help line has been installed (currently at the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital, 0800 333 555), where the sisters or doctors at the primary health clinics can phone for advice as to whether the child needs to be referred for further investigation, and which unit they should be sent to.

Dr Stelios Poyiadjis, one of the specialist paediatric oncologists at the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital (in Soweto, Johannesburg), has been very instrumental in the development of these Warning Signs, and devoted part of his sabbatical in 2001 to visiting the staff in the primary health care clinics and educating them about the Warning Signs.

The posters that are distributed to the primary health care clinics are of A2 size, and have high quality printing. Examples in the different languages found  HERE.

The printing of the posters, and the funding of the toll free line, has been sponsored by CHOC Childhood Cancer Foundation, South Africa. The artwork was kindly sponsored by Terranova.  

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