Tanzania's government says it plans to build a factory in the northern city of Arusha to produce cancer medicines for Tanzania and other African countries, along with a specialised centre to treat cancer patients, and that land has already been set aside.
Paul Makonda, the Minister for Information, Culture, Arts and Sports and the Member of Parliament for Arusha Urban, made the announcement on Monday, 28 September 2026, according to Xinhua, China's state news agency, in a report carried on by CGTN Africa.
Makonda spoke while visiting a cancer screening camp at Kaloleni District Hospital in Arusha, held with the Ocean Road Cancer Institute, Tanzania's national referral centre for cancer treatment, in the coastal city of Dar es Salaam.
Xinhua reported that preparations for construction were underway and that the project would create jobs.
The treatment centre would be what Xinhua described as a centre of excellence offering advanced cancer care in Arusha.
The report did not name the other African countries, and it did not say what the project would cost, who would pay for it, who would build it, which medicines it would make, or when it might open.
Xinhua reported that Makonda said the aim is to bring specialised cancer services closer to residents, so that people need to travel less to Dar es Salaam for screening and treatment.
Xinhua also reported that Dr Diwani Msemo, Ocean Road's executive director, said more than 400 people had been screened since the camp began on 28 September, about 220 women and 180 men.
He urged Tanzanians to be screened regularly, saying that finding cancer early raises the chance of successful treatment and lowers costs.
The International Agency for Research on Cancer, part of the World Health Organization, estimated about 29,000 new cancer cases and about 18,700 deaths in Tanzania in 2024, in figures published in 2026.
Spread across a year, that works out to roughly 80 new diagnoses a day.
An earlier edition of the estimates, for 2022, put the numbers higher, at about 45,000 cases and nearly 30,000 deaths.
Both are estimates, not a count of every patient.
An analysis of the 2022 figures, posted online in October 2025 and not yet reviewed by other scientists, noted that Tanzania has no complete national cancer registry, the record that would list every case.
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In the 2024 estimates, cervical cancer is the most common cancer in the country, with about 5,000 new cases, or 17 per cent of the total, and breast cancer comes second.
Among men, prostate cancer comes first, followed by cancer of the food pipe.
Dr Msemo, in remarks the Daily News reported on 9 February 2026, also named cervical cancer as the leading cancer and said late diagnosis remains a major challenge.
He said cervical cancer is largely caused by the human papillomavirus, or HPV, for which a vaccine is available, and that Tanzania has rolled out HPV vaccination for girls aged 9 to 14 in schools.
The government says it already covers much of the cost.
The Daily News reported Dr Msemo as saying that radiotherapy, which treats cancer with beams of radiation, would normally cost about 5 million Tanzanian shillings but is offered to patients for 100,000 shillings.
That is 2 per cent of the normal price, with social welfare staff stepping in for those who cannot pay even that.
He also said cancer care "is not like treating malaria or typhoid" because it is so expensive and complex.
The same report said Ocean Road has received a new scanner, known as a positron emission tomography or PET machine, which shows where cancer has spread, bought for 18.5 billion shillings.
It gave this in its account of Health Minister Mohamed Mchengerwa's remarks on government investment.
It also reported that under the improved health insurance framework, a household contribution of 150,000 shillings a year gives access to treatment at accredited facilities.
None of the reports on the Arusha plan said whether making medicines locally would lower what patients or the government pay for them.
Tanzania's Prime Minister, Mwigulu Nchemba, said in Parliament on 6 February 2026, according to the Prime Minister's Office, that the government had revived Tanzania Pharmaceutical Industries, a factory in Arusha region, to help ensure enough HIV medicines are available.
Cancer medicines are a different product, and the reports on the cancer plan do not mention any link to that factory.
For now, the plan consists of an announcement and allocated land, and its cost, funding, timeline and list of medicines are what will show whether, and when, patients feel a difference.
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