Dr Marina Aloyce Njelekela is well known for her role in advocacy campaigns that have brought to light the real extent of the problem of breast and cervical cancer in Tanzania.

Because of her work, the country’s prevention and management systems for cancers have significantly improved.

Dr Njelekela holds a medical degree from the Univeristy of Dar es Salaam, and a PhD in Human and Environmental Studies from Kyoto University, Japan. She was recently appointed executive director of the Muhimbili National Hospital.

Before her appointment, Dr Njelekela was a senior lecturer and head of the department of physiology at the Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences.

She focused on lifestyle-related diseases in developing countries for her PhD thesis, realising that diseases like diabetes and cancer are increasingly becoming a public health issue in countries like Tanzania, where all along they had been considered a Western problem.

Dr Njelekela led the Medical Women’s Association of Tanzania for six years.

During her two terms as a leader of the association, she was at the forefront of health awareness among women and the general public, especially on breast cancer and screening that were conducted all over Tanzania — in Dar es Salaam, Mwanza, Mbeya, Mtwara, Lindi, Dodoma, and Manyara among other places.

She is a recipient of various awards in academia and social services, including the prestigious Martin Luther King Drum Major Award for Justice that was bestowed on her by the US embassy in January 2010 for her efforts to improve women’s access to health care services.