Series: 13 days of Oncology with Kishan Sivakumar
According to Figure 1 by BMJ Global Health, nations in Eastern and Southern Africa suffer from a high prevalence of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which is a precursor to many fatal diseases. As discussed in the previous sections relating to forms of cancer, cervical cancer, and Kaposi’s sarcoma are connected to the development of HIV, as they can hinder the immune system allowing for malignant cells to grow and multiply.
According to Figure 2 by Brookings Institution, Sub-Saharan Africa, the region that Uganda resides in, lacks proper education in the fields of both Mathematics and Reading, which depicts a lack of holistic education. This overall lack of education provides a sign of insufficient knowledge being given to students, which can range from basic principles of mathematics and reading to sexual education. The effects of this lack of exposure has caused “ 25% of girls aged 15-19 years” to become pregnant, with “14% of men and 25% of women” to become affected with “sexually transmitted infection (STI) before age 50” (Boozalis et al.). As seen in Figure 2, there is a lack of facilitated education in Sub-Saharan Africa, which is accompanied by a lack of sexual education because of the “parliamentary ban on comprehensive sex education” by the Ugandan government in 2016, with Uganda only lifting the ban “on sexual education beyond abstinence in May 2018” (Boozalis et al.). As seen in Figure 1, the effects of this temporary ban and the lack of holistic education correlate with the increase in HIV prevalence, as it is high in a region without holistic education and sexual education.
Results
With the decreased level of education, accompanied by the increased level of HIV prevalence in the region surrounding Uganda, there is a correlation between the lack of education and the transmission of sexually transmitted diseases (STD), with no implied causal relationship. Ultimately, the information prior to the figures relating to the development of various forms of cancer around the globe display how one’s contraction of a form of an STD can cause the development of certain fatal diseases due to harm to the immune system. Thus, a continued correlation can go as far as to connect a lack of comprehensive education to the development of strains and variations of cancer. Thus, to prevent the correlation between education and fatal diseases from causing detrimental effects in the Ugandan populace, it would be beneficial to facilitate greater awareness of the idea of STD effects and to grow sexually-based education.
Sources:
Asasira J;Lee S;Tran TXM;Mpamani C;Wabinga H;Jung SY;Chang YJ;Park Y;Cho H;
“Infection-Related and Lifestyle-Related Cancer Burden in Kampala, Uganda: Projection of the
Future Cancer Incidence up to 2030.” BMJ Open, U.S. National Library of Medicine,
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35296484/#:~:text=The%20ASR%20of%20prostate%20cancer,
low%2Fmiddle%2Dincome%20countries.
Sow, Mariama. “Figures of the Week: Africa, Education, and the 2018 World Development
Report.” Brookings, Brookings, 9 Mar. 2022,
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/africa-in-focus/2017/10/06/figures-of-the-week-africa-education
-world-development-report-2018/.
Boozalis, Jaclyn A, et al. “A New Hope: Introducing Comprehensive Sex Education to a
Christian Secondary School in Uganda after Repeal of Parliamentary Ban: Published in Journal
of Global Health Reports.” Journal of Global Health Reports, International Society of Global
Health, 28 Apr. 2020,
https://www.joghr.org/article/12528-a-new-hope-introducing-comprehensive-sex-education-to-achristian-secondary-school-in-uganda-after-repeal-of-parliamentary-ban.
