Trending To Day

Josephine Chinele, CNS Correspondent, Malawi For many February is a month of love, as Valentine’s Day is celebrated. But 27 year old Elisa, based in Lilongwe, remembers this month because of her father who died of cancer. “Of course, World Cancer Day is commemorated on 4th of February every year. But I feel that the disease should be remembered all the time and efforts to control it intensified and renewed every year,” she says. “My father was a chain smoker. He had a prolonged cough for more than 2 years,” narrates Elisa. Elisa’s father died of lung cancer, which was diagnosed at an advanced stage. She says her father wasted much of his illness time believing that he had been bewitched. “He was a successful tobacco farmer in our village, and therefore thought that people were jealous of him. He only accepted to go to the hospital when he became very weak.” Elisa’s father is one of the more than 20% of all people around the world who have died of cancer due to smoking. Statistics point...

Alice Sagwidza-Tembe, CNS Correspondent, Swaziland On September 25th 2015, countries adopted a set of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure prosperity for all, as part of a new sustainable development agenda. Each goal has specific targets to be achieved over the next 15 years. For the goals to be reached, everyone needs to do their part: governments, the private sector, civil society and ordinary people. Of these 17 goals, the 3rd goal is dedicated to Good Health and Well-being. One of its targets envisages to reduce by one third premature mortality from non-communicable diseases (NCDs)—like cancer—by 2030. It has been more than 1 year since then, but with 8.8 million cancer related deaths in 2015, there does not seem to be any major change towards reduction and prevention of cancers. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), about one third of cancer cases are preventable.  Anne Jones , Senior Tobacco Control Expert with t...

Clarity Sibanda, CNS Correspondent, Zimbabwe The International Cancer Day 2017 (4th February) comes at a time when the death rate due to the disease is increasing, notwithstanding the research going on to diagnose and cure more people. Several progressive governments are calling for nicotine tar lovers to quit smoking, which accounts for more than 20% of all cancer deaths worldwide. Tobacco use increases the risk of at least 14 types of cancers: lung, larynx, oesophagus, mouth, bladder, stomach, bowel among others. Approximately 47% of cancer cases and 55% of cancer deaths occur in low and middle-income countries and, according to health experts, by 2030 these countries are expected to bear the brunt of an estimated 21.4 million new cancer cases per year, accounting for 60-70% of the global cancer burden. Research has found that tobacco use is the single biggest avoidable cause of cancer globally. Although nicotine is addictive, assistance with cessation is vital for many who want to q...

Shobha Shukla, Citizen News Service - CNS Dr Navneet Singh, PGIMER (L), Shobha Shukla, CNS (C) and Dr Marzi Mehta, surgical oncologist (R) [ Watch this video ] [ Listen or download audio podcast ] Lung cancer is the most common cancer worldwide. In 2012, there were an estimated 1.8 million new lung cancer cases (13% of all cancers diagnosed), and 1.59 million deaths (19.4% of the total cancer deaths). According to the latest cancer registry data released by the Indian Council of Medical Research , 0.114 million new lung cancer cases (83,000 in males and 31,000 in females) are estimated during 2016 in India. Watch this video Listen or download audio podcast Over 20% cancer-deaths preventable Anne Jones , senior tobacco control expert with the International Union Against TB and Lung Disease (The Union); former CEO of ASH Australia; and Medal of the order of Australia (OAM) awardee; said that over 20% of all cancer deaths are caused by tobacco use. Tobacco use not only dangerously ele...

Aarti Dhar, CNS Correspondent, India (First published in theindiasaga.com ) The tobacco industry and its products, which have a deadly impact on people’s lives, cost the world’s economies more than US$ 1 trillion annually in healthcare expenditures and lost productivity, according to findings published in ‘The Economies of Tobacco and Tobacco Control.’ Around 6 million people die annually as a result of tobacco use, with most of them living in developing countries. Policies to control tobacco use, including tobacco tax and price increases, can generate significant government revenues for health and development work, according to this new landmark global report from WHO and the National Cancer Institute of the United States of America . Such measures can also greatly reduce tobacco use and protect people’s health from the world’s leading killers, such as cancers and heart disease. The almost 700-page monograph examines existing evidence on two broad areas of the economics of tobacco ...

Shobha Shukla, Citizen News Service - CNS Dr Navneet Singh, PGIMER (L), Shobha Shukla, CNS (C) and Dr Marzi Mehta, surgical oncologist (R) Lung cancer is the most common cancer worldwide. In 2012, there were an estimated 1.8 million new lung cancer cases (13% of all cancers diagnosed), and 1.59 million deaths (19.4% of the total cancer deaths). According to the latest cancer registry data released by the Indian Council of Medical Research , 0.114 million new lung cancer cases (83,000 in males and 31,000 in females) are estimated during 2016 in India. Diagnostic challenges Dr Navneet Singh, Pulmonologist, PGIMER While early diagnosis of lung cancer helps save lives, it is beset with many challenges. TB and lung cancer have overlapping symptoms and, to some extent, similar radiological findings. So people with lung cancer, especially those living in areas far away from good healthcare facilities, often get misdiagnosed and are treated for TB. They are referred to tertiary care centres on...

Catherine Mwauyakufa, CNS Correspondent, Zimbabwe To say that more poor people succumb to non communicable diseases (NCDs) as compared to the rich is not an understatement. One would wonder, why this co-relation between poverty and NCDs— if these diseases are non communicable how do they end up killing more poor people? Poverty stricken communities have little or limited recourse to healthcare, and hence access to medical screening is constrained and at times not available to them. Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs), cancers, respiratory diseases and diabetes are the four main NCDs that account for 82% of all NCD deaths. As far as CVDs (group of disorders of the heart and blood vessels) are concerned, early detection is crucial in managing them. Another important factor is that people coming from families with a history of CVD have to be monitored and if found in need get early treatment. Now poverty plays a negative role as poor people fail to get health monitoring as required. An interes...

Shobha Shukla, Citizen News Service - CNS [ Click here to listen or download this podcast ] So said Dr Tara Singh Bam , Regional Advisor for Tobacco Control at the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (The Union) on the sidelines of the 47th Union World Conference on Lung Health in Liverpool, UK. While reflecting upon the game changing successes in the field of tobacco control, he called for broader partnerships among different public health programmes for accelerating progress in implementing effective tobacco control. He repeatedly insisted upon the importance of working together. “We can no longer work in isolation. We have to work together. We cannot achieve our desired goals if there are vertical programmes alone. People working for TB control, tobacco control, and control of non communicable diseases (NCD) will have to work together with a holistic approach for the common good. It is the need of the hour to integrate all public health programmes to fight...

Henry Neondo, CNS Correspondent, Kenya A group of international cancer organizations today launched a new initiative to encourage governments to increase taxes on tobacco. Tobacco causes 20 percent of all cancer deaths and more than 4,000 people die from tobacco-related cancer each day. The initiative aims to build a global coalition of cancer organizations, all working individually and collectively to campaign for high tobacco taxes that are proven to reduce tobacco use. Emphasizing the global, collective nature of the coalition, cancer organizations are being invited to sign up and cast their vote to name the campaign at NameTheFuture.org. This new initiative aims to increase understanding within the global cancer community of the power of tobacco taxation as an effective measure for reducing tobacco use and preventing cancer and other chronic disease. In addition, high tobacco taxes have the potential to generate millions annually in sustainable government revenue that can be rein...

Shobha Shukla, Citizen News Service - CNS The first press meet at the 47th Union World Conference on Lung Health , being currently held in Liverpool, saw the Ministers of Health from Philippines, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe reflect on the successes and challenges of responding to the global epidemic of TB, tobacco related diseases and Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs). Jose Luis Castro, Executive Director of the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (The Union) set the ball rolling by saying that although the latest estimates of the global TB burden were very disturbing (10.4 million new TB cases and 1.8 million TB deaths in 2015), all is not lost. There is still hope to reverse the tide as we know what is to be done - business cannot be as usual . WHO's endorsement of the 9-month short regimen for MDR-TB treatment is one such positive step in the direction of meeting the global goal of ending TB by 2030. Countries will now have to start the process for its roll-ou...