The Benekie Foundation a formal advocacy organization focused on creating awareness on most non-communicable diseases in collaborating with the All-Africa Students Union to mark the 2020 world cancer day today, 4th February 2020 at the University of Professional Studies, Accra.
The education will focus on Skin Cancer as a result of skin bleaching.
World Cancer Day falls on February 4 and the day was set aside by the international community to increase awareness and education on cancer, founded by the Union for International Cancer Control to support the goals of the World Cancer Declaration, written in 2008, and according to recent studies, cancer had cost the global economy an estimated 1.6 trillion dollars annually, a figure projected to increase substantially if effective remedies were not put in place.
Cancer causes 7 million deaths every year – or 12.5% of the 58 million deaths worldwide – this being more than the combined total deaths from HIV/AIDS, TB, and malaria.
The GLOBOCAN estimates that 16,600 cases of cancer occur annually in Ghana, yielding an age-standardized rate of 109.5 cases per 100,000 persons.
Cancer has been considered as one of the world’s most pressing health concerns, killing more than eight million people every year, more than HIV and AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined.
In Ghana, it had emerged that cervical cancer since 2018 had been the second leading cause of death among women, next to breast cancer, saying the two, kept competing with each other every year, as either the first or second leading causes of death among women.
Available statistics showed that in 2018 alone, an average of about 3,150 cervical and 4,200 breast cancer cases respectively were recorded in Ghana, making the diseases the leading cause of death among women, which was worrying.
Source: Kofi Atakora
