Breast cancer: Pink Ribbon joins hands with HEC to launch awareness drive

Aims to reach students in 500 colleges and varsities in 12 months.

ISLAMABAD:

Pakistan has the highest rate of breast cancer in Asia and one out of nine women in the country is at risk of contracting it.

This was stated by Pink Ribbon Chief Executive Omer Aftab on Monday at the launch of an awareness campaign that will be carried out in collaboration with the Higher Education Commission (HEC). Prevalence of breast cancer is the highest amongst all cancers in the country, resulting in the deaths of 40,000 women every year.

The Pink Ribbon Campaign has marked 2012 as the Pink Ribbon Youth Year. The target is to reach out to 500,000 youth through 500 colleges and universities in a year.

The programme has so far reached out to 130,120 girls from 47 colleges and universities in Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Lahore, Peshawar and Quetta.

“Fortunately, if breast cancer can be cured is detected at a very early stage and patients have around 90 per cent chance of survival. Therefore, it is important to focus on prevention rather than cure,” said Aftab. “We need more support to extend our message to ensure that none of us will have to bear the horror of losing a mother, a sister, a wife, or a daughter,” he added.

The Pink Ribbon Campaign aims to sensitise girls and women by arranging events and activities that create a direct interaction. Free national screening programmes have also been arranged in collaboration with partner hospitals.

According to Aftab, recent trends have shown that the incidence of breast cancer is increasing by an alarming 30 per cent in girls in the country.

Since daughters are close to their mothers, they should motivate their mothers for regular breast self-examination and medical check-ups, he stated.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 2^nd, 2012.