Dunya Women’s Cancer Clinic-one of HWC’s clinics-ends its fourth October’s Breast Cancer Awareness Campaign for early detection. The campaign’s slogan was: “Don’t hesitate; early detection saves your life”. October’s campaign is an international campaign that starts in October of every year for awareness in breast cancer.
This campaign included many governmental and non-governmental organizations. Those organizations included Ramallah and Albireh Governorate, Ramallah’s Municipality, Bank of Palestine, Ajyal’s Radio Station, NBC, Nisa’s FM’s Radio Station, TV of Palestine, and different schools and universities. The partnership of those organizations had an important role in covering social cases and spreading awareness.
The campaign included many activities, workshops, and conferences, for women at the different clinics and centers of HWC and other public and private agencies located in different governorates. The campaign included a TV spot and a radio spot that were aired on different channels and there were billboards in the streets about the campaign.
Breast cancer is the first cause of death in the world comparing to the other types of cancer, where one out of eight women get it up to the age of 80. On the other hand, the percentage of having the disease in Palestine is from one to 13 women but the percentage of mortality in Palestine is higher than the other regions because f late diagnosis. The reasons for that are lack of awareness, fear from the disease and its results, the occupation’s checkpoints and procedures that diminishes the ability of patients to get to the diagnostic centers and the lack of specialized centers for early and fast detection of the disease.
The percentage of having the disease increases annually where in 2013, 401 cases were diagnosed with the disease comparing to 2012, were 292 cases were diagnosed with the disease in Palestine according to the statistics of the Palestinian Ministry of Health. In 2013 breast cancer was the most disease spreading in Palestine comparing to other types of cancer. In regards to the geographic areas in Palestine, Bethlehem was the highest of all regions followed by Nablus, Tulkarem, and Ramallah of the numbers of breast cancer patients.
The distribution of breast cancer in 2013 in Palestine according to age is as follows:
|
Age group
|
Number of breast cancer patients
|
|
20-30
|
6 cases
|
|
30-40
|
53 cases
|
|
40-50
|
109 cases
|
|
50-60
|
96 cases
|
|
Over 60
|
135 cases
|
In 2013, 59 women under the age of 40 were diagnosed with breast cancer and 109 women were diagnosed from the age group of 40-50, which means that the younger generation is more exposed to having the disease. This means that awareness campaigns are vital.
Dunya has contributed in conducting diagnostic tests for 3900 women, 2000 of which have benign tumors and 100 have cancer. Those women were in the early stages of the disease, which means the possibility of cure is high. Dunya covered 1000 social cases.
The role of the local community is vital to spread awareness about early detection. HWC and Dunya Women’s’ cancer Clinic thank all of the participants for their efforts during the campaign and ensure that October’s campaign will be conducted every year because of its importance in spreading awareness and saving women’s lives.
