By Amos Tauna
Kaduna (Nigeria) – Government and Non-Governmental Organisations as well as Civil Society organisations in the country have been urged to device ways of ensuring that Cancer awareness campaigns are taken to the rural areas to help reduce the rapid spread of the killer disease.
The founder, Foundation for the Protection of Women and Children, Ramatu Tijjani observed that many African women living in the rural areas were dying silently as a result of Cancer.
She stressed the need for more campaigns to be taken to the rural areas to save humanity from its threat.
Ramatu who was speaking in Kaduna, northern Nigeria on the World Cancer Day, noted that Cancer was a killer disease that needs concerted efforts by all stakeholders to be able to arrest the situation.
At a one day lecture organised by Women hood Foundation, its school Director, Mallam Nurudden Bello, said the lecture was organised for students to sensitise them on various preventive ways of Cancer.
According to Nurudden, “This is an indication of how everyone, collectively or individually can play their part to reduce the burden of cancer, it gives us the opportunity to reflect on what we can do, make a pledge and take action.
“Cancer is the second leading cause of deaths globally and accounted for 8.8 million deaths in 2015. Lung, prostate, colorectal, stomach and liver cancer are the most common types of cancer in men, while breast, colorectal, lung, cervix and stomach cancer are the most common among women.
“Millions of people died yearly as a result of cancer, and millions are still dying due to increasing number of cancer related cases that are coming out every year which is a big threat to the existence of human being.
“In African most of the infected ones are the rural dwellers that are mostly women, hence the need to take more campaign and awareness to those areas, in other to save the dwellers from the increasing daily battle against cancer.”
Nurudden noted that advocacy on cancer in Nigeria was very poor, stressing that rural dwellers’ perception toward cancer that it cannot be successfully managed, but definitely leads to death.
He explained, “The negative attitude will be successfully managed with increase in awareness campaign that we can, I can fight cancer, manage cancer, treat cancer and control cancer.”
He noted that current evidence has shown that between 30 and 50 per cent of cancer deaths could be prevented by modifying or avoiding key risk factors tobacco products, reducing alcohol consumption, maintaining a healthy body weight, exercising regularly and addressing infection-related risk factors.
https://www.africaprimenews.com/2017/12/12/health/unicef-to-tackle-prevalence-of-hiv-among-adolescents-in-northern-nigeria/
