The pink ribbon

It is breast cancer awareness month – colloquially also referred to as ‘Pinktober’ – and it is encouraging to see the number of pink ribbons representing the fight against breast cancer on TV screens across the country. The messages put out by mobile telephone companies for service users also add to efforts at general awareness about the problem and the degree to which it exists in the country. Currently, according to health organizations in Pakistan, the country has the highest rate of breast cancer in Asian countries with one out of every nine women facing the risk of being diagnosed during their lifetimes. This is an extraordinarily high number. Of course, many women will never be diagnosed in time for treatments to work given that early stage breast cancer is frequently ignored by patients for reasons linked to social taboos, as well as a lack of awareness about the symptoms to look out for and measures such as self-examination every month. For reasons that are unclear, there is a rise in breast cancer rates among women in their 30s and 40s, a far younger population than that generally seen with the disease which requires urgent measures at cure.

Even more disturbing is the evidence from organizations dealing with medicine that the rate of breast cancer will increase exorbitantly in the country by 2025 and that more and more women will fall victim to it. In this situation, we need to take desperate measures to create a better diagnostic system and more awareness about how to determine if someone is suffering from disease and what she should do if she sees any change that could signify the onset of breast cancer. To achieve this, it is important to spread the message not only to urban areas, but to the rural outback, where we barely know how many women fall victim to the disease each year.

We also need to end the taboos surrounding the disease, one of the reasons which leads to the high rate of death from breast cancer in the country. Most forms of breast cancer are curable if discovered early enough. They can be treated with regular measures and facilities for this exist at many places in the country, but obviously they are far too limited in more remote areas and smaller towns. It is good to see attempts being made to spread the message and the awareness about breast cancer, the most common cancer, for women. But we need to do even more and also determine why the rate is so high in our country. Only then can we win the battle against breast cancer.