{"id":3732,"date":"2026-09-16T10:15:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T10:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thedawnrwanda.com\/?p=3732"},"modified":"2026-09-16T10:15:00","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T10:15:00","slug":"gatsibo-targets-62600-women-in-cancer-screening-drive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedawnrwanda.com\/index.php\/2026\/09\/16\/gatsibo-targets-62600-women-in-cancer-screening-drive\/politics\/national\/","title":{"rendered":"Gatsibo targets 62,600 women in cancer screening drive"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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More than 62,600 women in Gatsibo District are being targeted for cervical and breast cancer screening as health authorities step up efforts to detect the diseases early.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The campaign, launched at Rugarama Health Centre on Tuesday, Sept. 15, is targeting 30,870 women aged 30 to 49 for cervical cancer screening and 31,737 women aged 50 to 69 for breast cancer screening during September and October.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The exercise is part of a wider national programme that uses community health workers to encourage women to undergo screening and, for cervical cancer, help them collect samples closer to home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr Jean de Dieu Hategekimana, an official in the Rwanda Biomedical Centre\u2019s department of non-communicable diseases, said the programme aims to reach 1.2 million women across the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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He said about 570,000 women in 12 districts had already been screened as authorities work towards reaching 70% of women aged 30 to 49.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe self-screening method is not painful. We train community health workers to teach women at home, and the samples are taken to health centres and hospitals for testing,\u201d Hategekimana said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Gatsibo, community health workers are already helping to mobilise residents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kayitesi Josephine, a community health worker in Ntende II village, Gihuta Cell, said she had helped 14 women undergo cervical cancer screening since completing her training about two weeks earlier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She said some women initially hesitate but agree after receiving information about the importance of screening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gatsibo Deputy Mayor in charge of social affairs Mukamana Marceline urged residents not to wait for symptoms before seeking screening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cPeople should not wait until they feel pain or develop other symptoms before going for screening,\u201d she said, noting that some diseases can remain unnoticed for a long time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

RBC figures show that 539 women were diagnosed with cervical cancer in 2024. Breast cancer was diagnosed in 616 women and 16 men during the same year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rwanda has set a 2027 target for eliminating cervical cancer, with vaccination, screening and timely treatment forming part of the strategy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

More than 62,600 women in Gatsibo District are being targeted for cervical and breast cancer screening as health authorities step up efforts to detect the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3735,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43,53,51,41,34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3732","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current_affairs","category-featured-stories","category-health","category-hot_topics","category-national"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedawnrwanda.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3732","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedawnrwanda.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedawnrwanda.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedawnrwanda.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedawnrwanda.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3732"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thedawnrwanda.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3732\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3736,"href":"https:\/\/thedawnrwanda.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3732\/revisions\/3736"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedawnrwanda.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedawnrwanda.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedawnrwanda.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedawnrwanda.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}