NMG, partners unite against breast cancer

Hundreds of people yesterday turned up for the first edition of Eric's Breast Cancer Run in Kampala, seeking to raise awareness about the disease and mobilise funds for purchasing a van to support rural communities in early breast detection.

The event was organised by the Eric Cancer Initiative in partnership with Nation Media Group, UMC Victoria Hospital, and Uganda Cancer Society and National Water and Sewerage Corporation, among other partners.

Eric is an acronym for Early Recognition is Critical. The programme manager at Eric Cancer Initiative, Ms Ruth Namubiru, said most women in rural areas have limited access to cancer services and come to hospital when it is too late to contain the disease.

She explained that early detection and diagnosis increase women’s chances of surviving breast cancer and asked both men and women to embrace early screening.

“The only way we can bridge that gap is to make sure that early detection screenings are happening in all parts of Uganda,” Ms Namubiru said.

She explained that a breast cancer screen-up van would provide free and low-cost screening services to women, especially those in rural areas to promote early detection and save lives.

Cost of screening

“In our outreach, we realised that women receive the vital information but the services are not as available as we want them to be. We realised that we need Mammogram Van to make sure that we go to different rural areas and make sure that the women receive timely diagnosis for breast cancer,” she said.

Ms Namubiru revealed that the initiative has so far raised Shs15m out of the required Shs400m and called upon well-wishers to continue supporting the initiative.

She said the Eric Breast Cancer Initiative will be an annual event. Mr Edgar Ampaire, one of the participants, said cancer is a deadly disease, the reason he decided to support the cause to save more lives.

He encouraged the men to also embrace breast cancer screening.

“Just like women, men should not relax, they should also go for checkups to control the cancer before it is too late or get treatment in case it’s in early stages,” Mr Ampaire said.

Ms Minah Kemigisha, another participant, also emphasised the awareness role in the fight against cancer.

“It is about awareness for early recognition of cancer because if you recognise it early, it is easy to deal with or treat because we have seen survivors,” she said.

She called upon members of the public to support the initiative to help get cancer services closer to women in rural areas.

Concern 

Breast cancer contributed 2,999 of the 35,000 total cancer cases in Uganda in 2022.