Cancer Society: Cancer awareness still lacking

Cancer Society of Maldives has said that cancer awareness among the public was still lacking.

Co-founder of Cancer Society, Hussein Rasheed spoke to “Sun” on Monday and said that some types of cancer can be avoided by simply changing the lifestyle, and some the prevalence of such types of cancer in Maldivian society pointed to lack of awareness.

“I think that awareness is still lacking among the public. For instant, some types of cancer can be avoided by changes in lifestyle. And some types of cancer can be stopped through early treatment,” said Hussein Rasheed.

He said that further efforts to raise awareness was vital. And that educating the public on things that could lead to cancer, and how to keep cancer at bay was important.

“For example; cutting down on smoking cigarettes, chewing tobacco, cutting down on some types of food, cutting down on fizzy drinks and increasing exercise,” said Hussein Rasheed.

Hussein Rasheed said that government and Non-Governmental Organizations needed to collaborate together to run awareness programs at full-speed.

“I believe that we could get good results if we join together and run a major awareness program collectively throughout the country,” he said.

Hussein Rasheed said that the major challenge facing the country when it comes to cancer is that there is no research showing the number cancer patients, areas that have most cancer cases, and other such relevant facts.

He said that statistics collected by Cancer Society so far could be used for a research, but that it could take a couple of years to make a good research.

Work is being carried out to set up a national registry on cancer.