18th February, Dr Parkin, accompanied by Mrs Biying Liu, visited the Brazzaville Cancer Registry. This was a follow up visit. Aim was to review the status of the registry and to meet with the newly appointed supervisor of the registry (Pr JF Peko).
20-22nd April, Dr Parkin, accompanied by Mrs Gladys Chesumbai from Eldoret Cancer Registry, visited the cancer registry in Mwanza, Tanzania. The purpose of the visit was to review the feasibility of developing a PBCR, based on the work already done in BMC. The general impression was that the situation has been improving. Based on that AFCRN negotiated some financial support from the INCTR Burkitt Lymphoma Treatment Project and provided 8.5 months’ salary to the registrar Mr. Franco Afyusisye (expiring on 31 December 2016). He attended the October training in Kampala. By the end of 2016, the registry must submit their full data for evaluation.
23-24th April, Dr Parkin and Mrs Chesumbai visited the cancer registry in Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre. The findings were encouraging but the consultants were not able to assess the quality of the data due to the condition of the data sets (3 separate data sets). It was then suggested that the registry, with help from Gladys, reorganise their data base in CanReg5. Dr Michael Orest attended the October CanReg 5 training in Kampala.
Ms Chesumbai had helped merged two sets of data during the workshop. But it wasn’t possible to open the 3rd set. Dr Orest promised to send that data after his return.
23-24th May, Dr Parkin visited the Beira Cancer Registry. The conclusion was that since the previous visits/training provided by Dr Goncalo, the work performance of the registrar had improved. But there was still an urgent need for further training in CanReg5. There were errors in the database, the registrar should put in more effort in improving the data quality i.e. to purge duplicates.
25-27th May, Dr Parkin visited the Maputo Cancer Registry. The registry has made considerable progress since last visit (11 months earlier), so that, despite case finding methods that were still evolving, and incomplete data entry, the calculated incidence rates for 2015 were reasonable. As a result, the registry has become the 31st member of the Network. The registry was advised to improve the data collection form and explore additional sources of data. A registrar attended the Oct Kampala CanReg5 training course.
31May – 2 June, Dr Parkin visited the Zambia National Cancer Registry, as part of the collaboration with UICC and the Zambian Government for the development of the cancer control planning. The conclusion of the visit was that the registry has made progress in population-based registration for Lusaka district. However, the registration level was still not as complete as it might have been, possibly due to low staffing levels while having to record the data from the entire country. A new evaluation will be made when the 2014 registration is completed.
13 Oct, Dr Parkin visited the Kampala Cancer Registry. The objective was to learn about the planning for the registry after the foreseeable retirement of the current registry Director.
Zimbabwe National Cancer Registry
Under the leadership of Eric Chokunonga, the Zimbabwe National Cancer Registry provided in-house training to other registries. This year, the ZNCR hosted the team from the Zambia National Cancer Registry (20-22 April) and the Swaziland National Cancer Registry (4-6 April). In house training includes presentation on the Zimbabwe NCR, lectures on basic principles of cancer registry methods, observation of daily work activities, hospital visits, high level discussion about the planning and support for a national cancer registry. The experience was highly appreciated by the two teams.