Tackling Cancer - what you need to know

Cancer is probably the most well-known disease in the world. There are around 13 million new cases every year, with this number expected to rise to 22 million by 2030.

Different countries have very different cancer rates. This is partly because the risk is affected by lifestyle. Knowledge of the disease has advanced in recent decades but scientists are always battling to improve treatments.

BBC Health Correspondent Jane Dreaper explains more on the global fight to tackle cancer.

Man begins Windsor to Ottawa walk to end cancer

Mike Duhacek has watched his mother battle cancer for nearly three years.

It’s a disease that claimed the lives of two of his grandparents and when he discovered that one in three Canadians will be diagnosed with it, he decided to fight back.

For each one of the over 75,000 Canadians who will die of cancer this year, Duhacek is pledging to take 10 steps on their behalf in a walk across Ontario that he’s hoping will symbolize struggle, perseverance and ultimately burying cancer.

“I have a lot of frustration from watching both my grandparents fight the disease and both pass away from it and then with my mother going through three cancer surgeries and seeing what it actually does to people,” said the 36-year-old from Milton, Ont.

“I wanted to take that frustration and put it into something positive so I came up with dragging something around that depicts cancer, and what better depicts cancer than the actual word cancer?”

Written in large wooden letters, the word cancer is displayed on the side of a sled that he will be dragging behind him on his province-wide trek. The total weight of the sled is about 125 pounds.

“I want to take the word cancer and drag it behind me in the worst conditions, showing it no mercy and making it suffer like it does to so many people,” said Duhacek, whose walk begins at 7 a.m. today at the University of Windsor and should end in about a month in the nation’s capital.

“Once I get to Ottawa, I will actually physically bury the word in the ground where I think it belongs.”
Duhacek said he chose February specifically because it’s the month with the best chance for the worst kind of weather conditions.

“I hope it’s cold, I hope it’s blowing snow, I hope it’s freezing rain. I know that it’s going to be tough, and I want it to be tough. I think this journey represents that people can struggle but then can persevere, so that’s why I chose the winter for the walk,” Duhacek said.

“I just want to try and symbolize in a small way and give my sincere respect to anybody fighting the disease as well as any family members because I just see what a grueling disease it is.” It doesn’t just affect the person who gets it, but family members too, he said. “It spreads right through the family and to watch that suffering is not fun.”

Duhacek is dedicating the walk to all cancer patients and their families, and particularly his mother, Liz Crocket, who was first diagnosed with cancer in the spring of 2010.

“I’m going to help my son Mike bury cancer, before it buries me,” his mother wrote  in a blog post on her son’s website, HelpMeBuryCancer.org.

After years of on and off chemo and radiation, a blood transfusion, physiotherapy and three surgeries, Crocket posted on Jan. 28 that her surgeon told her she was cancer-free.

She said it has been a journey she could not have walked without her family by her side.

“Our family’s not unique, we’re not special, we’re just an ordinary family who has cancer and there’s a lot of families out there that are experiencing the same feelings that we are,” Crocket said Saturday. She said she’s so proud of her son.

“Everyone says to me, ‘You must be so proud,’ but I think the word proud doesn’t quite describe it. I’m beyond proud.”

Dahucek hopes to raise a total of $250,000 for the Canadian Cancer Society, and has already raised $13,000.

“Having such an overwhelming amount of support before I even take a step speaks volumes,” said Dahucek.

He plans to be as visible as possible to the public on his walk, hitting as many urban centres he can along the way to raise awareness and collect donations.

Donations can be made through his website, HelpMeBuryCancer.org, where he will also be keeping a daily blog of his journey. More information can also be found on his Facebook page called Help Me Bury Cancer.

Since the spring, Dahucek has been training, which has included dragging 125 pounds behind him through his hometown. He has even practised resistance training by tying a harness to his waist and pulling his brother-in-law’s tractor.

He plans to walk about eight hours each day, burning 500 calories every hour while dragging the heavy sled. He said he’s aiming to walk  40 to 50 kilometres a day, but understands he may not always make that goal because he intends to stop along the way to talk to people who have also been affected by cancer.

“We need to do something to eradicate this disease,” he said.

He said he’s prepared as he can be for the challenge that starts today.

“I feel excited, I feel anxious, I feel ready, I feel focused,” said Duhacek. “And I’m ready to make a difference.”

Fungus find sparks infection worries in new cancer centre

One thousand patients of the Olivia Newton-John Cancer and Wellness Centre may be at risk of infection after fungal spores created by a water leak were detected in clinics last month.

But in an effort to dry the water-affected areas using fans, the spores and dust were blown through, exposing people to possible infection.

The Austin Hospital, of which the Olivia Newton-John centre is part, is making contact with the 1000 people who have been in the affected areas between January 17, when the leak occurred, and Friday.

The hospital's director of infectious diseases, Lindsay Grayson, said that there was only a "small potential" that people would become sick.


"This poses a theoretical risk only to patients who have weakened immune systems," he told ABC Radio.

He said the areas affected were the day oncology and the day outpatients clinics.

"I would be amazed if even one [patient] got an infection from this," Professor Grayson said.

The leak occurred on January 17, and in one of the twice-weekly air quality tests on January 24, the results of fungal culture testing were eight to 10 times higher than expected, he said.

Patients particularly vulnerable were those whose white blood-cell counts were low, such as leukaemia patients, he said.

Not one patient had yet become ill but if they were to, it would not happen until next week, Professor Grayson said. Typical symptoms include coughing and fever.

Professor Grayson said "very detailed cleaning" had occurred over the weekend and he was confident that the centre was now clean.

Anyone who believes they may have been affected can phone The Austin hospital on 9496 5000.
 

Govt to include cancer treatment under NHIS

WORRIED by the growing cases of cancer in the country, the Federal Government is perfecting plans to include cancer screening and treatment as part of the services offered by the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) and make the scheme mandatory.

The Minister of Health, Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu, in an exclusive interview with The Guardian Sunday ahead of the World Cancer Day today, said: “The main thing that will help us is when the NHIS is made mandatory. It will help us raise enough money to include cancer as part of the diseases that are treated under the scheme.

“Cancer drugs are very expensive. We are discussing with companies to come into the country and establish industries. We plan to encourage them by granting them incentives and bulk purchase of the drugs for the cancer centres,” he said.

Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation (WHO) survey for World Cancer Day released yesterday warned that more than half of all countries worldwide are struggling to prevent cancer and provide treatment and care to patients.

According to the WHO survey, this means that currently, many of the countries do not have functional cancer control plans that include prevention, early detection, treatment and care.

It said there is an urgent need to help countries reduce cancer deaths and provide appropriate long-term treatment and care to avoid human suffering.

Chukwu said the government also plans to acquire mobile cancer vehicle that will move from state to state to offer free cancer screening.

He added that the Federal Ministry of Health has developed some centres to offer free cancer screening in the six geo-political zones. The centres include: Federal Medical Centre (FMC), Nassarawa State; FMC Guzo in Zamfara State; National Obstetric Fistula Centre Abakiliki in Ebonyi State; University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital, Rivers State; Ondo FMC, Ondo and Gombe FMC, Gombe State.

He explained: “We presently have nine Federal Government hospitals with linear accelerator (for the treatment of cancer) and one private hospital, Eko Hospital. But we found one major constraint with human resources in medical physicist. We did not have enough medical physicists. They are the ones that calculate the dose of radiation and calibrate the machine to deliver the dose.

“We have begun to train medical physicists with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) curriculum. We have a $37 million agreement with IAEA to pay in five years, which we are trying to meet up. We have paid only $7 million in three years. We are working with them and have started training medical physicists.”

Chukwu said the government has been negotiating with the Global Alliance for Vaccine and Immunisation (GAVI) to make the three doses of cervical cancer vaccine available for Nigerian girls for only N1,600. He said the cervical cancer vaccination is yet to be included in the national immunisation schedule to avoid overloading the scheme, which is already being stretched by the polio eradication efforts.

The World Cancer Day is a yearly event initiated by the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC) that urges people, organisations and government agencies around the world to unite in the fight against the global cancer epidemic. This year, the campaign focuses on improving general knowledge of cancer and dispelling misconceptions about the disease.

According to the WHO, cancer is a leading cause of death worldwide. 7.6 million people died from cancer worldwide in 2008 and every year, almost 13 million cancer cases are diagnosed. Already, more than two-thirds of cancer cases and deaths occur in developing countries.

Research suggests that currently, a third of all cancer deaths are due to modifiable risks including tobacco use, obesity, alcohol and infections. If detected early, many types of cancer such as breast cancer and cervical cancer can be successfully cured.

The recent WHO survey on national capacity for non-communicable diseases, which included responses from 185 countries, revealed major gaps in cancer control, planning and services control plans with a budget to support implementation.

It noted that less than 50 per cent of countries have population-based cancer registries, which are critical to capture high-quality information on the numbers and types of cancer cases so that effective national policies for cancer control can be developed, implemented and evaluated.

Recently, political commitments from world leaders to address cancer have gained steam, including discussions at the national level of funding cancer treatment and care by raising taxes on tobacco and alcohol, which are known risk factors for some cancers.

In another development, vaccinators have defied the prevailing security challenges in some parts of the country and most areas in Northern Nigeria to reach millions of children aged between zero and five with the Oral Polio Vaccine (OPV).

The Guardian reporters monitoring the on-going four-day National Immunisation Plus Days (NIPDs), which started on Saturday, February 2, 2013, report that the vaccinators employed by the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) and trained with technical support from the United Nation Children Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organisation (WHO), are pressing hard to reach the 50 million children target.

It was reliably gathered that some trained vaccinators had left their duty posts because of the security challenges, while others have been working under the fear of being molested or attacked by radical groups. It was also gathered that there has been high acceptance of the vaccine by most communities.

It was learnt that vaccinators have been allocated to communities and settlements with necessary logistics to avoid missing eligible children and prevent the spread of the virus, especially at the border communities.

Joint vaccinating teams exist at border states of Lagos, Oyo, Ogun, Kwara, Niger, Kebbi, Sokoto, Katsina, Jigawa, Yobe, Borno, Adamawa, Benue, Cross River, and Akwa Ibom.

Ogun State flagged off its NIPDs lunch of pentavalent vaccine on Friday at Itori Health Centre, Itori in Ewekoro Local Council Area, with the hope to capture 4,679,394 under-five children across the state.

Executive Director of NPHCDA, Dr. Ado Gana Mohammed, told The Guardian yesterday that the immunisation campaign is going on as planned.