’70 pc child cancers curable in Bangladesh’
February 8, 2009
Around 70 percent of child cancer patients in Bangladesh can be cured if proper and timely measurers are taken, said speakers at programme to mark World Cancer Day on Wednesday. “Timely treatment can heal around 70 percent of some 6,000 children affected with cancer in the country annually,” leading childhood cancer specialist professor MA Mannan told a meet the press gathering at the National Press Club. “But scanty facilities, huge costs and prolonged treatment are main reasons behind more than 90 percent of deaths” he said.
President of the Bangladesh Childhood Cancer Society, and head of paediatric haematology and oncology at BSMMU, Prof Mannan said, “Our infant mortality rate is the lowest in South Asia.”
“Though there are no authentic statistics in the country, but considering the incidence in other countries, we can presume some 6,000 of over five crore children should be diagnosed with the disease every year.”
The BCCS president said, “But only 500-600 children affected with cancers get treatment in the child cancer ward of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University.”
He called upon all to help setup child cancer wards in every hospital so that treatment could reach the ailing children across the country.
BCCS general secretary ADM Alauddin said the society was currently setting up a home for the cancer affected children on a donated plot of land in Narayanganj.
We are planning to set up branches all over the country, and reach medical care to suffering children, he said.
Oral cancer society president Prof. Motiur Rahman Mollah was also among those present.
Source: bdnews24
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