From Okwe Obi, Abuja
The Federal Government has said about 80 percent of Nigerians currently battle skin cancer as a result of bleaching.
The government lamented that despite the huge numbers, most of them are not aware of the disease.
Director General of Raw Materials Research and Development Council, Prof. Nnanyelugo Ike Muonso, stated this yesterday, at a workshop in Abuja, organised by the Tropical Derma Research and Training Institute on skin care research
“We also have problems with our skin because there is an epidemic here in Nigeria, topping the rest of the continent
“As a matter of fact, Africa has more than 80% of its women with deep bleaches, skin problems. About 80 percent of Nigerians. Some do not even know that they have very serious skin problems. But statistics have it that at least 80% of Nigerian women bleach.”
He, however, disclosed that the government had trained some people to obtain samples of skin problems across the country, noting that Nigeria has enormous raw materials to deal with that challenge.
“So, it is a challenge on its own because of the epidemic nature of the problem. If you leave that untreated, over time, if you do not solve that problem, over time we are going to have degenerations and things like, we also have epidemics in terms of skin cancer and other associated problems.
“So, yes, that is the reason we convened this training program, which is to train our staff on how to collect samples of skins to be able to identify the nature, the characteristics, the forms of skin problems that we have in Nigeria.”
On his part, a medical aesthetician, Dr. Edith Gibson, said one the reasons Africans bleach is for them to have an even skin tone.
“The majority of women, African women, black women, just want even skin tone. They don’t want to be able to take off their clothes and have different complexions all over their bodies.
“They want their face, their stomachs, their feet, whatever it is, to be uniform.”
She, also, argued that “only about 15 to 20 percent of women would want lighter skin at any cost, that is at the cost of their health.”