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Child­ren with can­cer get a chan­ce at life

Mar 31, 2025 | News

Möhnesee/Essen, 27.03.2025. In Eri­trea, the­re was pre­vious­ly no pos­si­bi­li­ty of trea­ting child­ren with can­cer. An esti­ma­ted 500 child­ren are dia­gno­sed with can­cer the­re every year — wit­hout any medi­cal care until now. Thanks to the com­mit­ment of Archemed and the sup­port of the RTL Foun­da­ti­on, the coun­try­’s first paed­ia­tric onco­lo­gy unit was ope­ned on 13 Febru­ary 2025 under the pro­ject manage­ment of Prof. Dr Uta Dirk­sen from Essen Uni­ver­si­ty Hos­pi­tal. The new sec­tion of the paed­ia­tric cli­nic at Orot­ta Hos­pi­tal in Asma­ra was inau­gu­ra­ted as part of an offi­ci­al cerem­o­ny. This gives child­ren with can­cer in Eri­trea a rea­li­stic chan­ce of a cure for the first time.

The ope­ning of the new ward marks the start of a pio­nee­ring pro­ject: Archemed has set its­elf the goal of estab­li­shing sus­tainable and effec­ti­ve can­cer tre­at­ment for child­ren in Eri­trea. In addi­ti­on to reno­vat­ing the ward, the Ger­man team from Essen is trai­ning doc­tors and nur­ses in par­ti­cu­lar. This is becau­se the tre­at­ment of onco­lo­gi­cal dise­a­ses requi­res spe­cia­li­sed know­ledge and adhe­rence to stan­dar­di­sed the­ra­pies.

The initi­al focus of the work is on the tre­at­ment of two par­ti­cu­lar­ly cura­ble types of can­cer: Wilms’ tumour, a kid­ney tumour, and Hodgkin’s lym­pho­ma. Even befo­re the offi­ci­al ope­ning of the cent­re, the first child in Eri­trea was trea­ted for Hodgkin’s lym­pho­ma — a signi­fi­cant mile­stone. ‘It was a plea­su­re for our team to see that our work is bea­ring fruit — the num­e­rous work­shops and trai­ning cour­ses pro­ved suc­cessful,’ explains Prof Dr Uta Dirk­sen, ’and it is par­ti­cu­lar­ly encou­ra­ging that our Eri­tre­an col­le­agues can now car­ry out tre­at­ments inde­pendent­ly.’

In addi­ti­on to medi­cal care, the docu­men­ta­ti­on of tre­at­ment suc­ces­ses also plays a cen­tral role. Struc­tu­red recor­ding is inten­ded to tre­at more and more types of can­cer in the long term and fur­ther impro­ve the­ra­pies. ‘Our aim is to gra­du­al­ly build up local exper­ti­se so that more and more child­ren with can­cer in Eri­trea have a rea­li­stic chan­ce of being cured in the long term,’ con­ti­nues Prof Dirk­sen.

The ope­ning of the paed­ia­tric onco­lo­gy unit is an important step for the health­ca­re sys­tem in Eri­trea. Arche­me­d’s work will con­ti­nue even after the con­s­truc­tion work has been com­ple­ted. Trai­ning cour­ses, tech­ni­cal main­ten­an­ce and fur­ther medi­cal trai­ning will ensu­re the sus­tainable deve­lo­p­ment of the pro­ject.

Archemed asks for dona­ti­ons to con­ti­nue sup­port­ing paed­ia­tric onco­lo­gy in Eri­trea: www.archemed.org/spenden, dona­ti­on account IBAN: DE63 4145 0075 0000 0882 03 (Spar­kas­se Hell­weg-Lip­pe)