Organisation to sustain annual breast-care walk

The President of Breast Care International (BCI), Dr (Mrs) Beatrice Wiafe Addai, has indicated the organisation’s commitment to continue with annual breast-care walk, in support of the country’s breast cancer awareness and education programme.

Initiated by the BCI in 2011, the annual event, dubbed ‘BCI Ghana Walk for the Cure’, continues to attract people from all walks of life, and this year’s event will be held on October 25, in Sunyani, the Brong Ahafo regional capital.

Speaking at the media launch of the event in Sunyani, she said the march, designed to whip up breast cancer awareness and education in the country, and to highlight the message of preventing untimely deaths from breast cancer, would be held on the theme: “Let’s join in the fight, we are stronger together”.

Support from Susan G. Komen 

Being organised with support from the US-based Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure, the event will principally involve a walk through the major streets of Sunyani, a concert and musical show, free breast screening and advice from some breast cancer survivors.

She described the walk as the country’s largest and successful breast cancer awareness-creation event and pointed out that breast cancer was the most frequently diagnosed cancer and leading cause of cancer death among women world-wide. 

With the global incidence and mortality of the disease on the rise, Ghana was  not excepted.

According to Dr Wiafe Addai, globally, it is estimated that nearly 1.7 million new cases of breast cancer were diagnosed with an estimated 522,000 deaths occurring in 2012.

Situation in Ghana

She said in Ghana, 2,260 women were diagnosed with the disease and expressed regret that 70 per cent of Ghanaian women who were diagnosed with breast cancer, reported to the hospital when the disease was in the advanced stages, although the disease was highly treatable and curable, if diagnosed early. She also cited lack of breast cancer awareness and education as one of the key explanations for the delayed presentation.

Osahene Kwaku Atakyie II, Omanhene of Kukuom Traditional Area and immediate past President of the Brong- Ahafo Regional  House of Chiefs, chaired the function.