Burkina Faso

THIS LANDLOCKED WEST African republic was a French colony known as Upper Volta until 1932 when it was divided among the French Sudan, Niger, and the Ivory Coast. In 1947, the colony of Upper Volta was reformed; it gained its independence on August 5, 1960, changing its name to Burkina Faso on August 3, 1984. With a population of 13,575,000, the county has a very poor health service with 3.4 doctors and 20 nurses per 100,000 people. Access to clean drinking water is limited, and a third of children under the age of five suffer from malnutrition.

An example of cancer incidence rates in Burkina Faso includes 93 cases of cancer in males per 100,000, according to the International Agency for Research on Cancer. After independence was gained, there was a large-scale expansion of the health services in the country, and with rising life expectancy rates, there was a consequent increase in cancer cases. Initially, many of the cancer cases were skin and liver cancer in the cases of men, and breast and cervical cancer for women. Gradually, other forms of cancer increased in importance. One of these was lung cancer, which is now a serious problem in Burkina Faso, where there has been a massive increase in annual cigarette consumption from an average of 27 sticks per person in [Page 146]1970 to 346 in 1980. In 1997, the rate of smoking had fallen significantly to an average of 227 sticks per person, still much higher than the rate 30 years earlier.