Aklavik Combats

Stomach Cancer Causing Bacteria

Billy archie has been a champion of h pylori testing as a health priority in aklavik for almost twenty years.

Ever since the early 90s, Billy was one of the first few people in aklavik who became concerned when community members, especially those in certain families, seemed to be plagued by stomach cancer. When a health team finally arrived in Aklavik to begin the study this February, he felt it was worthwhile to work through obstacles such as red tape and funding issues. “At least thirty lives must have been saved,” he said, because of the H.Pylori testing that the health team carried out.”

Dr. John Morse of yellowknife’s stanton Territorial hospital was then working in Inuvik. “I started to see stomach cancer among young people more often,” he said. H.Pylori cases were cropping up in communities such as aklavik, Inuvik, Tuktoyaktuk and fort Mcpherson. statistics show that 1% of people who have h pylori get stomach cancer, while 5 – 15% will get stomach ulcers.

“It was an issue that I kept pushing when I was hamlet councilor,” said Billy archie, now head of the aklavik Chapter of the arctic health research network, a committee made up of members from aklavik’s hamlet, band, community corporation and a nurse from the arcticnet research network. “finally when I became mayor, I had the authority to get this moving.” Antibiotics that worked in the south did not seem to have effect on northerners affected by h pylori. It also seemed that h.pylori was more prevalent in people with a large family that lived together.

In the past few years, doctors with experience in h.pylori cases (from stanton Territorial hospital and Capital health) joined the cause. Dr. Morse, Dr. sander Van Zanten, and Dr. Bob Bailey joined the cause. researchers from the university of alberta, led by Dr. karen Goodman, are now working on cultivating the bacteria in a lab, and hope to release results in six months. The research is ongoing this team will be going back to aklavik in the next eight to ten weeks.

They want to distinguish the types of H.Pylori found and to develop antibiotics that target those bacterias. “We are waiting to hear the news. If they find out what strains these are, they will be able to narrow it down and provide cures with the right antibiotics,” said Billy Archie. “It’s a really positive thing. I have heard leaders from other communities, such as Fort McPherson say, hey, we’re next.”

“This is a million dollar study,” said Dr. Morse, “and we had an ‘A’ team.” Olympus, a medical equipment manufacturer, also provided over $800,000 worth of the equipment needed to conduct the tests. These scopes are being tested for the first time in the North, and participants said the scope, which is inserted into their nostril were surprisingly comfortable.

“198 people showed up for the testing. They were all jumping on the bandwagon because at the back of people’s minds, they think: I might have cancer. We chose to have the study done in february because most people will be in town instead of on the land,” said Billy Archie.

“We found about 55 per cent of the people we tested have the h pylori bacteria,” said Dr. Morse. This percentage is more than double the percentage in the rest of Canada.

Many people on the health team had not been to the north before, and were treated with feasts and chances to participate in cultural activities such as square dancing and skinning foxes. “The people of aklavik were great, they get full marks for coming out, and also for welcoming the health team of 25 people into their community,” said Dr. Morse.