Kumasi, Dec 9, GNA - Dr (Mrs) Beatrice Wiafe Addai, President of Breast Care International, a Kumasi-based NGO, has described the current rate at which women, especially those in the rural areas, were getting infected with breast cancer as disturbing. She has therefore advised rural women to undertake periodic breast examination to determine whether they had the disease in order to seek early treatment.

Speaking to the Ghana News Agency in Kumasi on Wednesday after a breast cancer screening exercise for women in the Jaman North district at Sampa in the Brong-Ahafo region, Dr Addai attributed the situation to the changing lifestyles of rural women who were gradually moving away from natural diet to foreign and imported foods which might not be good for their health.

She said about 3,000 women from various communities, including Kabile, Morle, Asine, Mayera, Duadeso, Jankofe, Sikatia, among others in the district, benefited from the screening exercise. Dr Addai observed that out of the 3,050 women who visited her hospital for screening in 2002, 250 of them had cancer, and said what was worrying was that most breast cancer patients in Ghana were below the age of 50.

She lamented that breast cancer patients in Ghana did not survive long, hence the need for intensive education to create awareness among women to detect the disease early.

Dr Addai said it was in the light of this that Breast Care International and Peace and Love Hospital at Oduom in Kumasi, have seriously dedicated themselves to the creation of breast cancer awareness among Ghanaians, especially women in rural areas to enable them undertake periodic breast examination in order to detect the disease for early treatment.

She called for an aggressive approach to breast cancer screening and management to reduce the mortality of the disease on women in the country.