SKMT cancer awareness drive

LAHORE:Globally, October is marked as the breast cancer awareness month and every year Shaukat Khanum Memorial Trust (SKMT) campaigns aggressively on the national and international levels to educate the public about the importance of early detection of breast cancer.

This year, the Shaukat Khanum Breast Cancer Awareness Campaign will be launched on October 1 with the illumination of some landmark buildings in pink for three days, including the President House, the Parliament House, the Prime Minister’s Secretariat, and the Cabinet Division. The illuminated buildings will be symbols of hope and a reminder to the public that prevention may not be in our hands but early detection is.

On October 3, an awareness walk will be organised, starting from the F-9 Park in Islamabad, where all the participants will be demonstrating their support for breast cancer fighters and survivors.

In Lahore, Minar-e-Pakistan will be illuminated pink on Oct 9 while on Oct 27, an awareness event will be organised at Shaukat Khanum Hospital in which Mrs Samina Alvi, the First Lady of Pakistan, will participate as the guest of honour.

Additionally, SKMT has planned online awareness sessions by senior oncologists for students of educational institutes and employees of corporate sectors in all the major cities of Pakistan, including Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad,Rawalpindi, Peshawar, Gujrat, Jehlum, Sargodha, Sahiwal, Faisalabad, Multan, Bahawalpur and Hyderabad.

The Shaukat Khanum Mobile Mammography Unit will provide free screening to women to increase access to the life-saving diagnostic tool for a larger proportion of the population.

Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women worldwide and Pakistan has one of the highest incidence of breast cancer in Asia. Over the years, breast cancer continues to be the highest reported malignancy at Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Centres in

Pakistan. If detected early, breast cancer has a high survival rate of around 90 per cent and due to the life-saving nature of breast cancer awareness campaign, Shaukat Khanum Hospital will be continuing the campaign this year, where all the activities will be conducted in line with internationally recommended safety guidelines in view of the ongoing pandemic.