Today is the 4th February, the World Cancer Day. In this blog article, let me teach you 5 useful information about this disease.
1. How much peoples dies from this?
Evaluating the disease’s gravity can be helped with some stats. Today, 16% of peoples dies from cancer (source: World Health Organization). Yes! Numbers says that 8.8 million people died from cancer in 2015, so 1 of 6 global death.
And it’s sad but 70% of these death are from low/middle income countries. But in 2017, less than 30% of low-income countries reported treatment services are generally available. In other words, a lot of peoples suffering from cancer can’t afford the proper treatment for his illness.
Only 14% of people needing palliative care can receive it. Palliative care access is extremely hard to get.
2. What are the most common types?
For men:
- Lung
- Liver
- Stomach
- Colo-rectal
- Prostate
For women:
- Breast
- Lung
- Colo-rectal
- Cervical
- Stomach
3. How to prevent cancer?
According to WHO, “between 30-50% of cancers are preventable”.
Tobacco is the factor of 22% of cancer cases. So, the first step in escaping cancer is not to smoke.
Vaccines can help preventing cancer. In 2012, we know that 25% of this disease case was triggered by cancer-causing infections. Human papillomavirus (HPV) causes cervical cancer, hepatitis B virus (HBV) causes liver cancer. 1.1 millions of cancer cases per year shouldn’t happen if everyone was properly vaccinated against.
Other notable risk factors are alcohol, environment, unbalanced diet and lack of physical activity.
4. Economy impact
Cancer cost US $1.16 trillion per year (referring 2010 data). Its impact on economy is significant and increasing: a veritable burden on global economy.
5. Problems related to cancer policies
Only 1/5 of low and middle income countries has enough data to drive correct prevention policies. Then, a lot of countries and country leaders don’t know how to face this scourge.
Most of concerned countries are low and middle income countries. Their budget is not enough to collect all required data to protect citizens from. The government is helpless in the face of this disease.
Conclusion
To conclude this blog article, let me share this tweet for you: