Cancer specialist hospital, Beacon Hospital has launched the ‘Cancer Won’t Wait’ campaign to raise awareness of the importance of early detection and cancer treatment during the Covid-19 outbreak.
The hospital’s experts urged people with new symptoms to not delay in getting diagnostic tests done especially during the Covid-19 outbreak.
“It is crucial to know that the long intervals between cancer detections, diagnosis and treatment, could result in disease progression or treatment complications. It is important that you don’t delay cancer treatments and our experienced team of multidisciplinary specialists are here to support you,” Consultant Clinical Oncologist and Medical Director of Beacon Hospital, Dr. Mohamed Ibrahim Bin Hj. Abdul Wahid said.
He also pointed out that there are patients who delayed their cancer treatments because of concerns being in the high-risk category with exposure to the Covid-19 virus.
“Simple screening tests look for particular changes and early signs of cancer before it has fully developed or before any symptoms emerge,” Dr. Ibrahim said.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), cancer is the second leading cause of death globally, accounting for an estimated 9.6 million deaths, or one in six deaths, in 2018. Many health systems in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are least prepared to manage this burden, and large numbers of cancer patients globally do not have access to timely quality diagnosis and treatment.
