Daily Times

The conduit through which news and views flow towards Balochistan (except social media activism) has been political or the one pertaining to security. Unlike conventional media-coverage of the issues, social media activism–the unleashed citizen journalism through social media–accentuates and highlights the issues, which mismatch 24/7 news-breaking trend. Intermittently, there has been a myriad of issues rising to a high scale on social media in Balochistan. At the core lie two basic issues: converting Quetta-Karachi bound N-25 highway into a double carriage road and the establishment of a cancer facility in the province. The latter has forced the government to budge on the issues. Eventually, the government of Balochistan has inaugurated Shaikh Zaid Cancer Facility, at a total cost of 1.5 billion rupees.

Unfortunately, owing to a continuous increase in cancer cases, the whole country paints a clumsy picture on the national vis-à-vis provincial level. According to Globocan’s report released in 2018, there was a surge in new cancer cases in Pakistan. As per the report, in 2018, the total number of new cases was 173,937 whereas the total deaths stood at 118,442. Moreover, the data compiled by Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Centre (SKMCH&RC) revealed that cancer cases had consecutively enhanced in Pakistan since 1994. As per the data (from 1994 to 2018), 913,81 cases were registered with SKMCH&RC. Furthermore, Punjab had the highest number of cases registered (68.7 per cent). Balochistan is ranked fourth after Sindh with a total number of 1,394 cases (1.5 per cent).

Primarily, the low number of cases registered with SKMCH&RC from Balochistan might be due to various reasons. Given the high rate of poverty in the province, inaccessibility to hospitals out of the province is due to the financial status of the patients who end up either in Balochistan Medical Centre Hospital (BMCH) or Centre for Nuclear Medicine and Radiotherapy (CENAR). According to the statistics available with CENAR, within a time period of 12 years (from 1998 to 2009), as many as 122,02 cases were registered with CENAR. Apart from ascertaining the genre of cases, research on causes and development of preventive guidelines to cope with the prevalence of cancer in Pakistan remains uncertain.

Conversely, Pakistan faces a serious dearth in advanced clinical research. However, there is a plethora of accessible research-based data available to take guidelines. Contemporary research has thoroughly focused on preventive methods. The preventive measures are advantageous in terms of mitigating the burden of cost otherwise spent on treatment.

Take, for example, three Asian countries, which have been on the radar for having a high ratio of gastric cancer. Korea, Japan and China are reckoned among the countries having a high rate of gastric cancer in the world. Japan has achieved success in generating preventive measures to curb the high incidence of gastric cancer. Japan had a high incidence of gastric cancer before and after World War Second. Nevertheless, its lucrative health policies-cum-laws have enabled her to achieve startling results.

Three Asian countries, Korea, Japan and China, have been on the radar for having a high ratio of gastric cancer

Interestingly, Japan has been engaged in enacting health laws since 1922. After an amendment in National Health Insurance (NHI) Law in 1958, all municipalities fell under the obligation to establish and administer residence-based NHI programmes. However, the year 1961 marked a landmark achievement as Japan attained universal health care by the dint of expanding NHI programme to all municipalities. Moreover, until 2000, Japan had gastric incidences four times higher than in Europe. Perhaps, this was because of some dearth in gastric screening programme initiated during the 1960s. With the identification of Helicobactor Pylori as the leading carcinogen group in 1994 by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IRAC), the clinical research in Japan focused on finding methods to diagnose and eradicate H Pylori in the early stages. Thus, H Pylori’s eradication therapy was added to health insurance coverage in 2000; further expanded in 2013.

The clinical research-since health insurance coverage included H Pylori eradication therapy-in Japan has focused on the efficacy of health insurance coverage. The research data revealed that effective policies to eradicate H Pylori infection have dramatically mitigated infection. The clinical research further unveils that decrease in H Pylori infection would reach 14 per cent in 2030 and 5.4 per cent in 2050.

With the availability of research-based guidelines to develop preventive measures to deal with the cancer menace, Pakistan ought to expand the circle of expending on clinical research to come up with preventive measures too. Preventive measures will be less costly as compared to the cost of cancer treatment. For instance, the annual cost of gastric cancer treatment in Japan had been three to five billion Yens. But, the early eradication therapy of H Pylori is much lower than the hefty cost of treatment.

Surprisingly, the World Cancer Report lists tobacco consumption one of the leading causes of cancer. Around 2.4 million people die due to the consumption of smoked and smokeless products worldwide. Likewise, the data released by SKMH&RC lists breast cancer (in females) and oral cancer (in males) at the top. The mortality rate caused by the farmer can be reduced by bringing about cost-friendly and researched-based policies. However, the latter needs more awareness and strategies focusing on screening that leads to an early diagnosis of the disease. To curb cancer menace through preventive measures, Pakistan should believe in the medically coined phrase “Guilty until proven innocent,” which, in legal terms, is rightly pronounced as “Innocent until proven guilty.”

The writer is a freelance journalist and researcher