Using education to fight a killer

There is a silent killer in Yemen, slowly murdering thousands of people every single year. But this killer doesn’t get the same kind of attention that guns and bombs and other more dramatic killers get in the media. Yet this killer could be stopped—or at least slowed—with a little education. The name of this killer is cancer. As a story on our Reports page this week points out, about 1,000 people out of every 1 million worldwide suffer from cancer, according to World Health Organization estimates.

That suggests that out of Yemen’s population of 20 million, at least 20,000 have some kind of cancer. Yet, since the National Cancer Center was founded in 2004, it has only received 5,000 cancer cases, which suggests that the majority of people with cancer are still not diagnosed or receiving treatment. Several steps are needed in order to lessen cancer’s death toll in Yemen. First, children must be taught in school from a young age—around 12 or so—the warning signs of cancer, as part of a health class.

This can help people to get themselves or their relatives to treatment early enough to catch the cancer before it spreads. It is critical to treat cancer in its earliest stages, in order to have the best chance of survival. Health classes, integrated into the school system, could also do much more than educate people about cancer’s augers. Such classes could teach children—who will eventually be adults with children of their own to look after—how they can best take care of themselves to prevent cancer, and what the main causes of cancer in Yemen are. For example, several studies have found that cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli and cauliflower can help prevent the growth of cancer cells in animals and humans.

A diet rich in these vegetable is one thing that can help a person ward off cancer. All vegetables and fruits can actually help a person prevent disease, because they contain valuable vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants that help the body’s immune system fight off all kinds of ailments. These foods should make up the bulk of a person’s diet, which is almost never the case in Yemen. Reducing the consumption of meat can also help reduce the risks of cancer. Several studies have linked chemicals found in red meat—especially processed meats—to various kinds of cancer.

Also, our children need to be taught from a very young age that there is a direct and scientifically proven link between smoking and cancer. Too many of our young men—and increasingly, our young women as well—are carelessly lighting up, without considering that they are inching their way forward to their own deaths. By educating people about smoking at early ages, we could dramatically reduce the lung cancer rate in Yemen.  Only by arming ourselves, as well as everyone we know and love, with knowledge about the things that cause cancer, and the things that may help prevent it, can we begin to fight back against this deadly disease.

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