CHENNAI: It is time for India to start a National Cancer Mission, similar to the ones started to eradicate certain communicable diseases, said Soumya Swaminathan, chief scientist of World Health Organization (WHO), speaking at the Dr S Krishnamurthi Centenary Oration held here on Saturday.
“A total of 8.3 per cent of deaths were due to cancer in 2016, which double its contribution in 1990,” she said attributing the disease to tobacco consumption and lifestyle. She said that some of the major challenges the country faces in combatting cancer are access limited by capacity, social inequity and innovation stifled by distorted market.
Swaminathan said that it was important to analyse its incidence locally and come up with a decentralised solution to tackle it. “We can see that the rate of breast cancer deaths in countries like Germany is coming down, but it is on the rise in countries like Ethiopia. So globally we’ll see that cancer rates are likely to increase in low-income countries,” she pointed.
A detailed analysis of data on cancer burden is the need of the hour, she remarked elaborating that India needs to increase the efficiency of screening and upskill healthcare workers, in addition to creating a registry of rare cancers and exceptional responder register. “Only one in five countries has necessary data on cancer burden to constructively act on it. But owing to our large population, we have a large sample space making any kind of research feasible and scalable,” she said.
However, she also pointed out that services associated with cancer are still extremely expensive and out-of-pocket expenditure is still high in most countries.Swaminathan said that among other projects India needs to take up, it needs to consider introducing at least a mandatory single-dose vaccine against Human Papilloma Virus (HPV), as research has shown that even a single dose significantly reduces the possibility of developing cervical cancer.
Muthulakshmi Reddy started the Adyar Cancer Institute as a four-bed unit in 1954, and Dr S Krishnamurthy, her son, became her natural heir there. He took over as director in 1959 and the Institute has grown to 450 beds now. He has contributed immensely to the growth of the institute and medical technology in India. In 1970, the government awarded him the Padma Shri. From 1965, he was on one or more committees of the World Health Organization up until 1982. In 1983, he became a member of the Advisory Committee on Cancer Control and Planning of the Central government. He passed away on July 2, 2010.