Women Attending Breast Cancer Awareness Campaign In Namibia Found Lumps In Breasts, Referred To Physicians For Evaluation, Testing

Main Category: Breast Cancer
Article Date: 18 Oct 2007 - 11:00 PDT

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The international breast cancer support group Reach for Recovery during a recent breast cancer awareness campaign delivered messages to 2,783 women at eight hospitals and clinics in northern Namibia, the Namibian/AllAfrica.com reports. The group's campaign, which held informational talks and answered questions about breast cancer, referred 255 women with lumps in their breasts to their physicians for further examinations and testing.

The group discovered that most women in rural areas of the country had never heard about breast cancer or self-examinations, according to the Namibian/AllAfrica.com. "The one thing that stood out during our campaign is that breast cancer education is nonexistent even among qualified matrons and nurses," Cheryl Ferreira, a breast cancer survivor who was part of the campaign, said. She added there was a lot of interest among women attending the meetings. "We had to convince the women that we were survivors [of breast cancer] by taking out our prostheses and showing them our scars, only then did they believe us and realize that there is life after breast cancer."

Breast cancer is the second most common cancer in Namibia, the Namibian/AllAfrica.com reports. "There is definitely an urgent need for government to get involved and realize that cancer is also a disease and that it is curable if detected early enough," Ferreira said, adding that "there is definitely a mismatch as far as cancer and other diseases are concerned." Reach for Recovery hopes to have another awareness campaign next year, possibly extending it to other parts of the country (Bause, Namibian/AllAfrica.com, 10/16).

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