Cancer and infections in sub-Saharan Africa

There are a number of other centres in Africa conducting cancer research. However, almost all of these programmes are hospital/clinic-based whereas our particular contribution is to leverage the power of population-based research using the Unit’s General Population Cohort (GPC). Within this framework, we have shown that cancer is the most significant cause of non-communicable disease (NCD) deaths in rural Uganda (>33% of NCD deaths and >15% of all deaths) and that cancer-causing infections are amongst the most important risk factors for NCDs in the region. Hence, the majority (but not all) of our activity relates to cancer-causing infections.