President Dr Arif Alvi on Monday stressed the need for disseminating the awareness message regarding breast cancer to every house across the country in order to ensure early detection of the disease and reduce the mortality rate.

Addressing the Breast Cancer Awareness Programme here, the president said Pakistan had successfully handled the polio disease and this experience also helped the government to successfully handle Covid-19 later on.

Now, he said the country was also driving the breast cancer awareness campaign very effectively.

“Awareness about other key health issues, including mental health, stunting, and women health, should also be raised along with the breast cancer awareness campaign as it is very important to keep women healthy for a healthy nation.”

Highlighting the family system in the country, the president said woman was the key member of a family that must be kept healthy, financially empowered, and also be kept safe from any kind of harassment in the society.

He said empowering the women economically was linked with the overall economic growth of the country.

He said in Pakistan, 24% of the total population was suffering from mental disease that was due to a number of reasons, including diseases and financial issues.

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Alvi also stressed the need to control population by increasing the access of the people to long-term contraceptive products as it was key to development of the country both in terms of health and economy.

Citing China’s example, the president said the country’s rapid development was due to its special focus on health and education.

He maintained that due to lack of resources in the country, prevention should be focused on to avoid chronic disease at later stage.

First Lady Begum Samina Alvi urged the women to learn how to self-detect the disease to ensure its timely diagnoses.

“Women should make a habit of self-checking for five months every month to minimise the death rate.”

Appreciating the role of media in the success of the campaign, the first lady said the media should continue its role in raising awareness about the disease.

She said she initiated the breast cancer awareness campaign five years ago and now the topic that was considered a matter of discomfort or restriction in the society, was being discussed at every level.

First Lady Begum Samina Alvi addressing a Breast Cancer Awareness program, at Aiwan-e-Sadr. PHOTO: APP

Expressing pleasure over increasing awareness about the disease, she hoped that the campaign would help further increasing the message to every door across the country.

She informed that every year, some 44,000 women die of breast cancer and the deaths could be avoided by early diagnosis.

She said the early diagnose ratio in the world was 98%, however, in Pakistan most of the cases were reported at third and fourth stages where the death chances went high. However, she expressed her satisfaction over the increasing number of cases being reported at the first and second stages thanks to the awareness campaign.

She said the death rate among the breast cancer patients in Pakistan was 48% which was alarmingly high. She asked the people not to feel any hesitation while discussing this disease.

Begum Alvi said the taboos and myths about the disease were now being broken and the people were freely discussing about the breast cancer disease at every forum.

On the occasion, caretaker Minister for Health Dr Nadeem Jan said the government needed to increase the health budget in the country up to 4% of GDP that was currently only 1% of GDP.

World Health Organization (WHO) Country Representative for Pakistan Dr Palitha Gunarathna Mahipala while addressing the ceremony appreciated President Alvi and the first lady for raising awareness about breast cancer in the country.