EDITORIAL: Let's step up efforts to defeat cancer scourge
The data that was recently released by the World Health Organization (WHO) and one of its Agencies regarding cancer – and breast cancer in particular – are most consternating, to say the least.
Some 8.8 million people died from cancer across the world in 2015. That was nearly one in six of all global deaths that year – a goodly 571,000 of the deaths caused by breast cancer alone.
Very briefly put, a cancer is a killer disease in the form of a tumour that is caused by an uncontrolled, abnormal and malignant division of cells in a given part of the human body.
Cancer knows no bounds; and Tanzanians have not been spared from the malady. According WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), Tanzania lost an estimated 19,900 of its citizens to cancer in 2014, about 10,800 of whom were women.
Nowadays, the country is hit with 30,000 new cancer cases annually, the five leading types globally being lung, liver, colorectal, stomach and breast cancer – listed here in order of their deadliness.
But, all is not lost. Deadly though it is, cancer is not only curable; it is also avoidable under certain circumstances, including adopting the right lifestyle and other preventive measures.
Indeed, early cancer diagnosis is critical to effectively fighting-off the killer disease. To that end, WHO has designed a package of essential noncommunicable disease interventions for primary healthcare in low-resource settings.
In that regard, we only need to earnestly heed the warnings and guidelines by WHO and other development partners, as well as well-wishers and other stakeholders in our welfare, to beat cancer hands down.
For starters, widespread sensitisation to, and awareness of, the malady in terms of the need for early diagnosis and screening is half the battle won early.
