CAN CERtainly Close the Care Gap
Today on 4th February,Union for International Cancer Control(UICC) observes World Cancer Day since the year 2000.The aim is to Raise awareness of cancer and to encourage It’s prevention, detection and treatment. In recent years the United Nations, the World Health Organisation and other UN agencies have recognised the urgent need for a global commitment.
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| World Cancer Day Poster by Simran Agrahari [2nd year , CSE ] |
Approximately 10 million people die from cancer every year. Breast cancer has been claiming the highest number of mortalities with oral cancer, uterine cancer and lung cancer following by in descending order. In India’s context, cases increased at an average annual rate of 1.1-2 percent from 2010-2019 with average number of deaths standing at 8,00,000 approx. per year. There were approx. 14 lakhs active cases in the year 2020 and the data of 2021 is yet to be published.
A 3 year campaign is being launched this year with the theme ‘Close the Care Gap’. The campaign as the name suggests aims to narrow down the inequities in medical care and facilities received by the victims due to lack of medical infrastructure, awareness or discrimination in their respective domain.
E.g. The survival rate in the case of cervical cancer for white women in US is 71% whereas it is just 58% for black women.
So, UICC is striving to achieve total cancer care equity among people coming from all races and cultures around the globe by the year 2024.
This Inequity gap is more pronounced in undeveloped and developing countries.It may seem like the UICC is setting unbelievably ambitious targets to achieve in a very short span of three years and this is true to an extent because in order to achieve total equity they have to conduct large surveys, raise huge funds and allocate them to innumerable domains as per requirements, monitoring of all their operations must be done and they will also have to work in tandem with all the local governments around the globe without fail which is frankly and unfortunately not possible.
But our systems can be reimagined, people’s knowledge about cancer can be increased and their access to services can be made easier. We can’t count on UICC or our local governments only to bring a change. It is our collective responsibility to diminish this Care Gap by raising our voices and pressurize government to address the root causes of these inequities and to treat cancer as an important health issue. People themselves should strive to adapt a healthy lifestyle by avoiding Tobacco products and Alcohol, maintaining a nutritional diet and get involved in regular physical activities to improve blood circulation and reduce excess body fat. Prevention and early detection is the key to defeat cancer.
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