May celebrated as Cancer Awareness Month

Earlier in this newscast, we announced the untimely death of former mayor and area representative Remijio Montejo due to brain cancer. According to the World Health Organization, cancer was responsible for the death of more seven and a half million people worldwide in 2005. And while statistics are hard to come by in Belize, for the next four weeks, the Belize Cancer Society will be putting the illness in the spotlight as they commemorate Cancer Awareness Month. This afternoon Secretary of the Belize Cancer Society, Kathy Esquivel, highlighted the organisation’s official activities.

Kathy Esquivel, Secretary, Belize Cancer Society
“We should be aware of cancer all year, but we take May to remind people of the importance of prevention and early detection. … Cancer tends to be more in an older population, so as we live longer we are going to see more of it. In women, the highest number is cervical followed by breast and in men it’s prostate and colon and colon is found in women as well and all of those cancers if detected early are all very treatable.”

“We usually start the month with a church service. This year it will be at St. Ignatius, this Sunday nine a.m. in the morning. And then we have an A.G.M., which is the eleventh and we’ve sent out invitations, but everyone is invited. It’s at the Y.W.C.A. on Freetown Rd. at seven in the evening. We have a rags day/dollar day. We have a social for patients and their families, and of course we have the big walk and that’s on the last Saturday in May, which is May twenty-sixth. If anybody wants to sign you for it, you can email me at belizecancerwalk@yahoo.com, get your sign up form, tell us what size T-shirt and we will give you all the information.”

The Belize Cancer Society is asking persons interested in the walk to sign up by the middle of May in order to secure their T-shirts. Forms can also be picked up from the Juliet Orosco Soberanis Cancer Centre on Mercy Lane in Belize City.