October 4, 2024

Uniting for Women’s Health: Advancing Breast Cancer Awareness and Care During #BreastCancerAwarenessMonth

October 4, 2024

Uniting for Women’s Health: Advancing Breast Cancer Awareness and Care During #BreastCancerAwarenessMonth

🎗October marks Breast Cancer Awareness Month; No one should face breast cancer alone.🎗

As a newly inaugurated World Economic Forum Champion of the Global Alliance for Women’s Health supported by the Gates Foundation, and a member of the World Economic Forum Women’s Health Gap Impact Tracking Platform Breast Cancer Working Group, it is a matter of priority to address women’s cancers and to scale-up effective diagnosis and treatment. Requiring collaboration across partners in comprehensive cancer control, these efforts are crucial to improve the quality of life for vulnerable communities while simultaneously strengthening national health systems, in line with the WHO’s 2021 launch of three integrated cancer initiatives for breast, cervical, and childhood cancers, and the WHO Global Breast Cancer Initiative.

Hosting a high-level multi-sectoral breast cancer roundtable at the recently concluded Concordia Summit during the United Nations General Assembly 79, as an Astra Zeneca Global Breast Cancer Care Council Member, and generously co-sponsored by Movement Health, Penn Medicine and Siemens Healthineers, was an opportunity to share the encouraging progress that the Powering Breast Cancer Progress Grant Programme, a funding initiative supported by the Charities Aid Foundation, will improve access to patient navigation services, an integral part of the patient experience as it helps navigate their complex care pathway.

Nigeria has one of the world’s highest mortality rates for breast cancer and the highest in Africa. Recognising this, the Wellbeing Foundation Africa is dedicated to enhancing public health education to raise awareness about the signs and symptoms of breast cancer so that women, together with their families, through our PSHE and Patient Navigation approaches, understand the importance of early detection and treatment, leading a path to medical practitioners when breast cancer is first suspected, before advancement, even in the absence of mammographic screening that remains impractical in many regions.

Let us honour and remember those we’ve lost to cancer, as we continue to advocate for greater progress in women’s healthcare globally.

 

 

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