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By Stephen Adeleye.
Civil Society for Cancer Eradication in Nigeria (CISCANEN) on Friday conducted a public awareness campaign on the dangers of cancer and how it could be managed or prevented.
Mrs Roseline Alabi, the North Central Coordinator of CISCANEN, told journalists during the Health Walk for Cancer in Lokoja that the organisation was an umbrella of all other civil society organisations working on cancer.
“The health walk today is to mark the ‘World Cancer Day (WCD) 2018’, and this is the first edition.
“We want to create awareness on cancer because we have had several deaths of unreported cases of cancer.
“That is why we are interfacing with Kogi Government today to partner with our organisation, and we are doing a health walk to Government House and other places, starting from the office our Patron, Mr Femi Akande.
“People are not really aware of what the cancer is, that is why we are taking it upon ourselves to carry out this awareness so as to have zero tolerance for cancer in order to prevent deaths,” Alabi said.
The state Commissioner for Health, Dr Saka Haruna, commended the group for the health initiative to promote the action of the World Cancer Day.
Haruna, who was represented by Dr Ayo Olayemi, the Director of Public Health, told journalists that the idea of the health walk was primarily to sensitise the people to know what cancer was all about.
“The idea is that people should seek knowledge even avoiding some certain food can save one from some types of cancer.
“If you smoke you can get cancer of the lung and any woman who gets involved in early sex can have cancer of the cervix.
“If you noticed any abnormal growth in your body, seek medical advice, because some of them if detected very early are treatable, such as cancer of the breast,” the commissioner said.
Earlier, Mr Femi Akande, the Managing Director of Treasure Bakery, who is the Patron of CISCANEN, said that the intention was to reach out to everyone, saying “cancer is a scourge that is seriously killing people even more than HIV AIDS”.
“We are all vulnerable, so we want everybody to be aware. It is just an awareness creation.
“We thank God we are doing our best with the little resources available to us to reach out to the people, we are not doing badly but we need government support,” Akande said.
Dr Ahmed Attah, Special Adviser to the state Governor on Health Matters, who addressed the group at the Government House on behalf of the governor, commended them for the great initiative.
“We are celebrating the WCD to let people know the high burden of cancer in Kogi, Nigeria and globally.
“It affects everybody; adult and children, male and female, white and black, rich and poor, and all tribes and languages.
“It is one of the most common causes of death in the world and it affects every cell in the body; that is why any organisation that takes cancer sensitisation as top priority is a friend to this government.
“We believe in awareness campaign on cancer and that is why this government is taking it very serious because prevention is better than cure,” Attah said.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that CISCANEN is the National Network of Civil Society Organisations working on the prevention, mitigation and eradication of cancer in Nigeria.
WCD is marked every Feb. 4. The theme for 2018 WCD is: “We Can, I Can Conquer Cancer”. (NAN)
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