Report warns of a looming cancer crisis in the next decade
By 2020, developing countries are expected to be home to 60 per cent of the global cancer burden, with the figure growing to 70 per cent by the following decade. And as it stands, the countries are not prepared to deal with the issue, according to cancer experts at CanTreat International. “Developed countries have been setting up plans and systems to cope with cancer all the time, but developing countries are not ready … treatment, diagnoses are made very late or not at all, so the (death) toll is much, much higher,” says Joseph Saba, a medical doctor and member of the group. According to the report, a breast cancer patient in the U.S. has an 84 percent chance of surviving for at least five more years. In Gambia, that rate is only 12 percent.