A Senior Nutrition Officer at the Adamsu Health Centre in the Jaman South Municipality of the Bono Region, Elikem Adzoma, is advocating the need to intensify the campaign against breast cancer in second-cycle institutions to help prevent breast cancer cases.
According to him, creating more awareness about breast cancer disease at the various second-cycle institutions will help send the right message to the youth who can assist in the fight against the disease.
Mr Adzoma was speaking to JoyNews on the sidelines of a training for food vendors at the Adamsu Roman Catholic (RC) basic school on food safety under the Nutrition Friendly School Initiative (NSFI) programme.
He said breast cancer affects both men and women but explained that it is necessary to educate the youth to know its symptoms and risk factors to fight the disease at the youngest age bracket.
“It is even more crucial to take the awareness campaign to the Junior High Schools (JHS) since the breasts of most girls have developed or are developing at that stage,” he added.
The Senior Nutrition Officer indicated that every minute, a person dies of breast cancer in Africa, with one person dying of the disease every 63 seconds in the world and called for much attention on the disease for its possible eradication.
He advised all, especially women and adolescent girls, to visit the hospital or any breast care centre for examination at least once every month.
He, however, called on churches, associations and civil society organisations to join in the fight against the disease.
“Churches can dedicate specific Sundays for the awareness creation, where health officials will engage the congregations on breast cancer and possibly undertake screening.
In my view, this will immensely contribute to early detection and treatment of breast cancer,” Mr Adzoma intimated.
He explained that educating the youth on breast cancer will enable them to identify the specific threats and warning signs of breast cancer, leading to early diagnoses and saving lives.
He stated that“Ignorance, an allusion to superstitious beliefs, and poverty accounts for the surge in cases, especially in rural Ghana, making it compelling for increased awareness creation and free breast screening to prevent needless deaths”.
Senior Nutrition Officer stressed that early detection is essential to treatment and warned, “delay in reporting to the hospital with late and end-stage conditions could have catastrophic results”.
“I am emphasising early detection because I had a friend who passed away for failing to report to the hospital with symptoms of cancer.
If she had reported her condition earlier, treatment remained the only best way to deal with the disease and could have saved her, but we lost her painfully,” he said.
He advised women to conduct self-breast examinations and report any abnormality for early treatment because cancer has no cure.
Mr Adzoma also insisted that breast cancer is not a curse and that victims can always survive.
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