Every year on the 4th February a truly global event takes place, World Cancer dayunites the world’s population in the fight against cancer. It gives everyone the chance to raise their collective voices in the name of improving general knowledge around cancer and dismissing misconception about the disease. The awareness day aims to save millions of preventable deaths each year by improving education about the disease and to press governments and individuals across the world to take action.
From a global level, World Cancer Day focuses their messaging on the four myths shown above.
This year alone, nearly 8 million people will die of cancer, and left unchecked, the number of deaths will increase to 13.2 million per year by 2030. World Cancer Day is the ideal opportunity to spread the word and raise the profile of cancer in people’s minds and in the world’s media.
There is now a need for a global commitment to help drive advancements in policy and encourage implementation of comprehensive National Cancer Control Plans. The World Health Organisation have released a report this week stating that the globe is facing a ‘tidal wave of cancer’ and it predicts the number of cancer cases will reach to 24 million a year by 2035, however they believe half could be prevented.
Along with raising education and awareness of cancer, people need to learn how to prevent cancer themselves and learn what major sources could cause cancer. Prevention is absolutely critical and it’s been somewhat neglected.
The WHO’s World Cancer Report 2014 said the major sources of preventable cancer included:
- Smoking
- Infections
- Alcohol
- Obesity and inactivity
- Radiation from both the sun and medical scans
- Air pollution
- Delayed parenthood, having fewer children and not breastfeeding
It is clear that if we don’t act now to raise awareness of cancer, we will be at the heart of a global crisis in cancer care within the next two decades.
Repton Medical is supporting World Cancer Day to help spread the awareness to a wider audience. To read more on World Cancer Day please click this linkhttp://www.worldcancerday.org/.
References:
News, B., 2014. Cancer ‘tidal wave’ on horizon, warns WHO. [Online] Available at:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-26014693 [Accessed 4th February 2014].
