Cancer patients in Nigeria face rising caseloads, scarce specialists, and high out-of-pocket costs

Nigeria, a country of 242 million people, has approximately 80 oncologists and only 15 radiation centers to serve its cancer patients, according to NPR's reporting. For comparison, the United States has roughly 27,500 oncologists for a population of 340 million. Radiation oncologist Dr. Basira Hanafi Lawal in Abuja told NPR she estimates that 70% of her patients arrive at stage 3 or 4, when tumors have spread into surrounding tissues, lymph nodes, or other organs.

The structural gaps shape patients' daily realities in concrete ways. Titilayo, a mother of three in southern Nigeria who asked NPR to use only her first name, said that when she needed chemotherapy infusions, they were not consistently available near her home, requiring her to source the drugs from another state and bring them to her local hospital herself. "The burden of getting the chemotherapy drugs — the burden was on me," she told NPR. Even obtaining a biopsy result required waiting weeks for a sample to be sent to Abuja.

Financial strain compounds the access problem. Because many Nigerian health insurance plans do not include comprehensive cancer care, families frequently rely on bank loans, workplace loans, and community fundraising. Breast cancer survivor and advocate Abigail Simon-Hart, cited as a reviewer in the WHO report, told NPR: "I've seen people sell everything they have and still lose their loved ones." Local crowdfunding websites, she said, are full of posts from patients attempting to raise money for surgery and medications.