Do you know that TWO out of FIVE cancers are preventable?
Feb 4, 2010 marked the World Cancer Day. The message got out to the world was all in sync – a good percentage of cancers are preventable.
Cancer is a leading cause of death, contributing to about one in every eight deaths worldwide and that is HIV, malaria and TB combined. While the fear for this killer is omnipresent, awareness about prevention is not. While cancer by itself is noncommunicable, about twenty-one percent of cancers are due to infections. Cervical and liver cancers are mainly due to such infections.
For example, HPV (human papillomavirus) infection contributes to cervical cancers and there are more than 250,000 deaths annually due to cervical cancer. However, available vaccinations for HPV infections, which are effective against two major types of HPV could prevent about seventy percent of cervical cancers. However, most of the developing countries have no access to this vaccination, resulting in about eighty percent of cervical cancer deaths happening in developing countries.
The main problem in these vaccinations reaching the mass has been the high cost involved in this. Noble winner Professor Hausen says on the International Union Against Cancer website that “The possibilities offered by cervical cancer prevention highlight the contribution of infections to the global cancer burden. Policy-makers around the world have the opportunity and obligation to use these vaccines to save people’s lives and educate their communities about lifestyle choices and control measures that reduce their risk of cancer”.
In addition to vaccination, few small changes to our lifestyles would result in a forty percent reduction. While the world keeps waiting for a cure, it needs to pay attention to the prevention part. With twenty percent cancers preventable by vaccination, regular exercising, avoiding overeating & smoking and reduced alcohol intake increase the prevention rate to an impressive forty percent.
