Let’s join hands to fight cancer

Today is the first day of the cancer awareness month. October is the Cancer Awareness month and for the next 31 days, media houses (including Nation Media Group), hospitals, clinics and other organisations will participate in activities to raise breast cancer awareness. During the month, focus is put on sharing stories, statistics and important information for people to know about breast cancer.

Emphasis is also put on cervical cancer since it is one of the cancers that affects many women. According to a Uganda Cancer Institute booklet published in 2018 titled, ‘Cervical Cancer: Information, Education and Communication for Health Workers,’ cervical cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths in women in Uganda. The research goes on to state that 48/100,000 women in Uganda have cervical cancer, and that is among the highest prevalence rates in the world.

It also states, sadly, that majority of women (more than 80 per cent) are diagnosed with cervical cancer at a late stage when no cure can be achieved and many more women die of it, but are not documented.
This is why it is important to create an awareness among women, their siblings, parents and colleagues about what cancer is like and why they do not have to look at it as a death sentence once they have been diagnosed with it.

Although October is usually when breast cancer is focused on, at the Daily Monitor, the team runs feature stories of not just breast, but also different types of cancer, including the statistics, the loss and indeed the fear that surrounds the disease.
But we also run stories about hope, victory over the disease and what support health workers, families and colleagues have given to those affected by cancer. Information is also given to people on where they can find help. Many clinics will carry out screening for breast and cervical cancer for free or at discounted prices and the stories will include this information.

It is important that everyone - from government to the schools, from the hospitals to the workplaces, and from the churches to community centres join hands in fighting cancer. A statement from the World Health Organisaton says: “There are about 1.38 million new cases and 458,000 deaths from breast cancer each year… In low and middle-income countries the incidence has been rising up steadily in the last years due to increase in life expectancy, increase in urbanisation and adoption of Western lifestyles.”
It is, therefore, incumbent that we all put our hands and minds together to come up with solutions to fight cancer.