ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has the highest rate of breast cancer in Asia, and the disease takes as many as 40,000 lives in the country each year. Today, one in nine Pakistani women is vulnerable to breast cancer.

This was stated by Sonia Qaisar, Pink Ribbon representative in Pakistan, at the launching of breast cancer awareness campaign here onWednesday.

Pink Ribbon, a non governmental organisation, is working towards raising the awareness about breast cancer.

During a month long campaign, the organisation will reach out to 100, 000 girls and provide information regarding breast cancer.

Ms Qaisar said that if cancer was detected at early stages, chances of survival were 90 per cent so people should be given awareness for early detection of breast cancer.

“All over the world there is a risk of cancer in women above the age of 40 but in Pakistan even teenage girls are affected. Unfortunately male doctors and even qualified women working in mother and child hospitals do not have awareness about the disease,” she said.

She told the audience as a result of the awareness campaign the number of breast cancer patients at hospitals had increased by 30 per cent.

Ms Qaisar said that Pakistan Post had issued commemorative stamps and Pakistan’s women cricket team is also an ambassador of the Pink Ribbon campaign.

A Breast Cancer survivor Dr Maria Catalina Alliende while speaking to participants said that treatment for cancer was available in Pakistan.

“Every woman should ensure that she gets a checkup and should not worry if symptoms are detected. I want to tell everyone that if you do get diagnosed, don’t hide your illness but talk about it, so that others can also know about breast cancer,” she said.

“Doctors should ask patients whether there is a history of cancer in the family,” she said.

Also speaking at the launching ceremony Prof. Mansoor Akbar Kundi, Higher Education Commission (HEC) director, said that the issue is close to his heart because he lost both his mother and sister to cancer.

He said during the last three years both the HEC and Pink Ribbon had reached out to over 352,000 girls in more than 100 colleges and universities in Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Lahore, Peshawar, Quetta and Karachi.

Pink Ribbon CEO, Omer Aftab, said that breast cancer in Pakistan needed special attention to control its spread and ensure timely detection. “Pakistan’s first dedicated breast cancer hospital will be established to ensure that none of us ever have to lose a mother, a sister or a daughter to this disease.

Published in Dawn, October 2nd , 2014