…As Minister Meets Two Child Cancer Patients
By Michael Gwarisa
RECENT statistics gathered by local charity organisation for children living with cancer in Zimbabwe, KidzCan have revealed that Epworth has the highest cases of Children with Xereodema, a rare skin cancer.
Speaking on the sidelines of a Meeting where Health and Child Care minister Dr David Parirenyatwa was meeting two young girls suffering from cancer, KidzCan Executive Director Dr Ntombi Muchuchuti said Xerodema despite being a cancer most prevalent in tropical regions has reared its ugly head in Epworth, Harare.
“Most mothers whose children are suffering from these skin cancers or have lost children to cancer have formed a support where they just meet and motivate each other to stay strong. Even the children living cancer are members of this support group.
“But according to out statistics, we have recorded more cases of this disease in Epworth, we are not sure what could be the reason, could it be  their health seeking behavior or either there is something that is in Epwroth probably the environment or genetic disorder,” said Dr Muchuchuti.
She said at the moment there were more than 5 children this type of cancer in Epworth and its the highest in the country.
Meanwhile, minster Dr David Parirenyatwa said government would move swiftly to address the rise in child cancer cases in Epworth.
“We have seen two sad cases of children with a rare skin cancer who are both below 10 years of age. This disses is caused by the mismatch in DNA.
“We heard of the rise in child cancer cases in Epworth, as government we are committed to getting on the ground and see how best we can assist in addressing this issue,” said Dr Parirenyatwa.
Meanwhile, Xeroderma pigmentosum and skin cancer is as a result of hypersensitivity of DNA repair deficient xeroderma pigmentosum (XP) patients to solar irradiation which results in the development of high levels of squamous and basal cell carcinomas as well as malignant melanomas in early childhood.
According to https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov, the skin cancer predisposition, observed in XP patients, is due to the mutator gene activity of XP cells which lead to high levels of UV specific modifications of crucial regulatory genes in skin cells leading to Cancer.
Thus, the high levels of UV specific mutations, seen in oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes, which have been characterized in XP tumors, clearly demonstrate the major role of the UV component of sunlight in skin cancer development.
