Nigeria is targeting technology transfer and local assembly of radiotherapy and imaging equipment by 2030, Minister of State for Health and Social Welfare Iziaq Salako said, according to a News Agency of Nigeria report published on August 15.
Salako said Nigeria’s ambitions for 2030 are larger than procurement alone, pointing to local assembly as the route to sustainable oncology capacity. He cautioned that hardware without trained operators is wasted investment, saying machines without people are monuments.
Nigeria recorded an estimated 127,763 new cancer cases and 79,542 cancer deaths in 2022. The mortality to incidence ratio improved from 62.3 percent in 2022 to 59.6 percent in 2024, an early indication that treatment access is widening even as case numbers grow.
The National Institute for Cancer Research and Treatment is training about 140 early-career scientists and funding 24 research grants, part of an effort to build a domestic oncology research base rather than rely on imported evidence.
Salako said innovation in oncology is meaningful only where it reaches the patient, a reference to the gap between centre-level capability in Abuja and Lagos and treatment availability in the rest of the country.
Nigeria currently operates a small number of functional radiotherapy machines relative to its population, and equipment downtime has historically been driven by maintenance and parts supply rather than initial capital cost.
Why it matters: Local assembly would cut foreign exchange exposure and downtime on the machines Nigerian cancer patients wait months to access.
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