Zainab Shinkafi-Bagudu Bemoans Death of 500,000 Women Due to Cervical Cancer

Onyebuchi Ezigbo in Abuja

Wife of the Kebbi State Governor, Dr. Zainab Shinkafi-Bagudu has lamented what she described as unnecessary deaths of 500,000 women from cervical cancer every year.

She urged world leaders to turn their attention to health inequities with a particular focus on the lack of access to Human Papilloma Virus Vaccine – a vaccine that can prevent the deaths from cervical cancer affliction.

Zainab Shinkafi-Bagudu spoke while recieving an award from Royal Society of Medicine, London for her outstanding contributions to Healthcare for women and children on the African Continent.

She said that given the emergence of new coronavirus variants across the world, it is pertinent to use the platform to urge leaders, “to turn their attention to health inequities with a particular focus on the lack of access to Human Papilloma Virus Vaccine – a vaccine that can prevent the unnecessary deaths of 500,000 women that are estimated to die from cervical cancer every year”.

She said the burden of this disease lies in African and other lower-middle-income-countries (LMICs)
Earlier while presenting the award to the Kebbi Governors wife, the organisers said that : “As the director and founder of the Medicaid Cancer Foundation, Shinkafi-Bagudu was recognised for leading an organisation that has become a lifeline for hundreds of thousands of people in Nigeria”.