Greater awareness on cancer, affordable treatments stressed

Developing affordable and accessible preventives and curatives to combat non-communicable diseases like caners and heart ailments came under focus when a Singaporean specialist met the Chief Adviser.

A spokesman for the CA Office said Professor Muhammad Yunus made a call for greater awareness on such fatal diseases during the meeting with leading Singaporean cancer- specialist Professor Toh Han Chong at the Jamuna on Saturday evening.

The head of interim government, Professor Yunus, noted that non-communicable diseases such as cancer, diabetes and heart ailments turned out to be cardinal causes of death across South Asia.

Professor Toh Han Chong, Senior Consultant at the National Cancer Centre, Singapore, was accompanied by Ms. Vijaya Rao, Deputy Director of the SingHealth Duke-NUS Global Health Institute, and Ms. Kalwinder Kaur, Healthcare Management Specialist at SingHealth and Edinburgh Napier University.

The CA called for greater awareness on cancer across the country, particularly cancers caused by fatty liver, and breast cancer, which has emerged as a major cause of death among women in Bangladesh.

"We need to build awareness on these diseases nationwide. Treatments for cancer or heart diseases are often prohibitively expensive. Preventive measures must be made easier and more affordable, especially for middle-class, lower-middle-class, and poor families," Professor Yunus said.

Professor Toh highlighted that fatty liver disease now affects hundreds of millions of people in South Asia and is increasingly linked to liver cancer and other serious illnesses. "We need to build greater awareness about this disease," he said.

The Chief Adviser also underscored the need for more widespread and low-cost breast-cancer screening in Bangladesh.

He called for enhanced healthcare cooperation between Singapore and Bangladesh, particularly in training Bangladeshi doctors and medical professionals.

Professor Toh noted that visiting Singapore specialists trained Bangladeshi doctors earlier this week and expressed the hope that such training programmes would continue annually.

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