Cre­ate a fu­ture with­out can­cer. The time to act is now.

To­day, we know more about can­cer than ever be­fore. Through in­vest­ing in re­search and in­no­va­tion, we have wit­nessed ex­tra­or­di­nary break­throughs in can­cer care, di­ag­nos­tics, and sci­en­tif­ic knowl­edge.

Yet, 10 mil­lion peo­ple die each year from can­cer.

Ac­cord­ing to the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion (WHO), “That is more than HIV/AIDS, malar­ia and tu­ber­cu­lo­sis com­bined. By 2030, ex­perts project can­cer deaths to rise to 13 mil­lion. If we do not act. The time to act is NOW.”

The glob­al com­mu­ni­ty com­mem­o­rates World Can­cer Day, on Feb­ru­ary 4, and the cho­sen cam­paign is ''I Am and I Will” (2019-2021). WHO joins this cam­paign to call every­one, col­lec­tive­ly and in­di­vid­u­al­ly, to com­mit to strength­en ac­tions aimed to re­duce the im­pact of can­cer. This can be achieved by lever­ag­ing me­dia to im­prove cred­i­bil­i­ty, re­duc­ing can­cer risk fac­tors, screen­ing, and de­tect­ing can­cer at ear­ly stages, and most im­por­tant­ly, im­prov­ing ac­cess to di­ag­no­sis, ad­e­quate treat­ment and pal­lia­tive care.

Ori­gin of World Can­cer Day

World Can­cer Day was con­vened on Feb­ru­ary 4th, 2000 at the World Sum­mit Against Can­cer for the New Mil­len­ni­um in Paris.

World Can­cer Day is an ini­tia­tive of the Union for In­ter­na­tion­al Can­cer Con­trol (UICC), the largest and old­est in­ter­na­tion­al can­cer or­gan­i­sa­tion ded­i­cat­ed to tak­ing the lead in con­ven­ing, ca­pac­i­ty build­ing and ad­vo­ca­cy ini­tia­tives that unite the can­cer com­mu­ni­ty to re­duce the glob­al can­cer bur­den, pro­mote greater eq­ui­ty, and in­te­grate can­cer con­trol in­to the world health and de­vel­op­ment agen­da.

World Can­cer Day pledges

- We be­lieve that in­di­vid­u­als, to­geth­er, can cre­ate change.

- We be­lieve by rais­ing the pub­lic lit­er­a­cy and un­der­stand­ing around can­cer, we re­duce fear, in­crease un­der­stand­ing, dis­pel myths and mis­con­cep­tions, and change be­hav­iours and at­ti­tudes.

- We be­lieve that ac­cess to life-sav­ing can­cer di­ag­no­sis, treat­ment and care should be equal for all, no mat­ter where you live, what your in­come, your eth­nic­i­ty or gen­der.

- We be­lieve that gov­ern­ments must be ac­count­able and na­tion­al lead­er­ship on poli­cies, leg­is­la­tions, in­vest­ment, and in­no­va­tion is key to ac­cel­er­at­ed progress.

- We be­lieve when lead­ers speak up and act, we give our­selves a chance to make his­to­ry and to move to­wards a world with­out can­cer.

Alarm­ing In­equities Glob­al­ly

In pre­vi­ous years, the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion high­light­ed the need to step up can­cer ser­vices in low and mid­dle-in­come coun­tries. WHO warns that, if cur­rent trends con­tin­ue, the world will see a 60% in­crease in can­cer cas­es over the next two decades. The great­est in­crease (an es­ti­mat­ed 81%) in new cas­es will oc­cur in low- and mid­dle-in­come coun­tries, where sur­vival rates are cur­rent­ly low­est.

In 2019, more than 90% of high-in­come coun­tries re­port­ed that com­pre­hen­sive treat­ment ser­vices for can­cer were avail­able in the pub­lic health sys­tem com­pared to less than 15% of low-in­come coun­tries.

“This is a wake-up call to all of us to tack­le the un­ac­cept­able in­equal­i­ties be­tween can­cer ser­vices in rich and poor coun­tries,” says Dr Tedros Ad­hanom Ghe­breye­sus, Di­rec­tor-Gen­er­al, WHO. “If peo­ple have ac­cess to pri­ma­ry care and re­fer­ral sys­tems then can­cer can be de­tect­ed ear­ly, treat­ed ef­fec­tive­ly and cured. Can­cer should not be a death sen­tence for any­one, any­where.”

Re­duc­ing the num­bers

2020 Sta­tis­tics from Cen­ters of Dis­ease Con­trol and Pre­ven­tion (CDC) re­veal:

- The most fre­quent­ly di­ag­nosed types of can­cer among men are: prostate (21.7%), lung (8.9%), col­orec­tal (7.8%), blad­der (4.5%) and melanoma of the skin (3.4%).

- Among women, the types of can­cer with the high­est in­ci­dence are: breast (25.4%), lung (8.5%), col­orec­tal (7.9%), thy­roid (5 %) and cer­vi­cal (3.8%).

- The type of can­cers with the high­est mor­tal­i­ty in men are: lung (18%), prostate (11.1%), col­orec­tal (9.4%), liv­er (6.1%) and stom­ach (5.6%).

- The can­cers that cause the most deaths among women are: breast (13.2%), lung (12.3%), col­orec­tal (7%), cer­vi­cal (5.3%) and ovary (3.9%)

It is es­ti­mat­ed that 30-40 per­cent of can­cers can be pre­vent­ed by re­duc­ing the sig­nif­i­cant risk fac­tors. Pub­lic health poli­cies can be put in place to sup­port in­di­vid­ual healthy lifestyle choic­es, and that makes them the easy choice. Many oth­er can­cer types, no­tably cer­vi­cal, breast and col­orec­tal can­cer can be de­tect­ed ear­ly and treat­ed ef­fec­tive­ly through or­gan­ised screen­ing and ear­ly de­tec­tion pro­grammes, and ac­cess to time­ly can­cer treat­ment.

2021: The fi­nal year of the ‘I Am and I Will’ cam­paign

For the past two years, World Can­cer Day sup­port­ers around the world have been shar­ing their ‘I Am and I Will’ com­mit­ments, pledg­ing bold and brave ac­tions to re­duce the im­pact of can­cer.

This com­ing World Can­cer Day (2021), in the fi­nal year of the ‘I Am and I Will’ cam­paign, the glob­al com­mu­ni­ty is in­vit­ed to par­tic­i­pate and share their jour­ney in achiev­ing the ‘I Am and I Will’ com­mit­ment.

Take the World Can­cer Day 21 Days to Im­pact Chal­lenge

It takes the prover­bial 21 days to cre­ate a pos­i­tive habit. So, for 2021, whether you are com­mit­ting to im­prov­ing your per­son­al health, sup­port­ing some­one you love with can­cer, ed­u­cat­ing your­self about can­cer, speak­ing out against can­cer or mak­ing his­to­ry by help­ing to elim­i­nate cer­vi­cal can­cer, we at HEALTH PLUS are invit­ing you to take one (or all) of these chal­lenges.

To­geth­er, all our ac­tions mat­ter

This year is a re­minder of the en­dur­ing pow­er of co­op­er­a­tion and col­lec­tive ac­tion. When we choose to come to­geth­er, we can achieve what we all wish for: a health­i­er, brighter world with­out can­cer.

Many of us have been touched by can­cer and we all have a sto­ry to share.

Shar­ing open­ly about can­cer and our ex­pe­ri­ences makes a huge dif­fer­ence in in­creas­ing aware­ness, un­der­stand­ing, over­com­ing stig­ma and re­duc­ing fear. HEALTH PLUS in­vites you to share with us your jour­ney of Can­cer, be it ho­n­our­ing the life of a loved one or your per­son­al war­rior sto­ry of re­silience. Re­viewed sto­ries will be pub­lished as part of our com­mit­ment to the World Can­cer Day 21 Day Chal­lenge

Email to guardian­health­plus2020@gmail.com

For more in­for­ma­tion on the 21 Day Chal­lenge vis­it:

https://www.pa­ho.org/en/cam­paigns/world-can­cer-day-2021-i-am-and-i-will