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DHA spearheads breast cancer campaign

Dubai, October 20, 2012

Dubai Health Authority has joined forces with pharma group Sanofi and technology giant Philips to launch its breast cancer awareness campaign which will run till the end of this month.

As part of the initiative, free screenings will take place across all governmental departments, said a top DHA official.

The drive is aimed at educate women about the importance of self-examination and early detection, remarked Qadhi Saeed Al Murooshid, the director-general of DHA.

The campaign which was recently held at Dubai Hospital provided free screening for participants using the hitech mobile mammogram machine.

Dr Abdelrazzak Al Madani, the CEO of Dubai Hospital said, "Through such campaigns we aim to educate people about the importance of regular screenings and raise awareness about this disease."

"It is a known fact that early detection can save lives and help reduce the number of women who succumb to this disease, however, one of the main challenges facing healthcare professionals is the significant number of women who are not aware of this," he added.

Dr Moza Al Hattawi, the chairperson of DHA Breast Cancer Campaign pointed out that almost 30 per cent of women who are detected with breast cancer visit DHA hospitals in the third stage.

"We want to reduce the prevalence of this trend, the outcome of treatment depends to a large extend on the stage at which the cancer is detected and treated, and we hope that we see women in the early stages of cancer rather than in their third stage," she remarked.
 
Al Hattawi said “While women in their forties and above are more susceptible to this disease, over the last few years, we have seen some cases in their twenties with breast cancer. We therefore recommend that women with a family history of breast cancer should conduct breast examinations from the age of 20, once every year," she added.

As part of the campaign, a mobile mammogram machine is taken to every location to conduct on-the-spot screenings for women.

“We are pleased to extend our support to this campaign. For all the screening programs that will take place under this campaign, Philips will provide the state-of-the-art mobile mammography unit,” said Diederik Zeven, the GM, Philips Healthcare Middle East and Turkey.

The DHA team also provided women with brochures and leaflets about breast cancer.

During each campaign, all those women who have screened themselves will place a pink rose on a huge pink ribbon-shaped stand that has been built for this campaign. The stand will then by display in October, which is the official breast cancer awareness month.

During these screening programs Sanofi will also help educate women about intimate hygiene and its importance.

“Since we are targeting women for the breast cancer awareness program, we wanted to use the same platform to also raise awareness about female intimate hygiene,” Al Hattawi said.-TradeArabia News Service




Tags: Philips | campaign | Breast cancer | Sanofi | DHA |

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