Breast cancer awareness campaign kicks off at Arab League premises

CAIRO, 21 Oct 2019: The Arab League in partnership with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) launched on Monday a breast cancer awareness campaign entitled "Your life is precious" to encourage the early detection and treatment of the disease.

The campaign comes as part of a cooperation protocol between the Arab League and the UNFPA's Arab States Regional Office (ASRO).

More than two million women worldwide suffered the disease in 2018, raising the number of cases to more than six million women representing 15.7 percent of the whole number of cancer patients worldwide.

The World Health Organization estimated the number of deaths due to breast cancer in the Middle East region at more than five women every hour, putting the rate of new cancer cases at between 29 percent and 40 percent in the Arab countries.