Plan to identify cancer in early stage: Minister Vidadala Rajani

Vijayawada: Minister for health Vidadala Rajani said the state government was coming up with an action plan to help the people identify the cancer in its first stage itself by bringing about awareness to them through village and ward clinics.

The minister met the AP government adviser on medical and health issues Dr Nori Dattatreyudu at her office on Monday. Speaking on the occasion, she said they were providing training to the village level health personnel to take up screening for cancer and added that as they were promoting ‘family doctor’ concept in a big way, they would bring about awareness among the people on the need for screening of the cancer during its initial stage.

Rajani said that they were preparing proposals for setting up centres of excellence to prevent cancer in Visakhapatnam, Tirupati and Guntur.

Government adviser Dr Nori Dattatreyudu opined that detection of cancer at its early stage would help provide treatment and said that if the breast, mouth and uterus cancers were identified in the primary stage, it would not cost much to treat them.

He said that Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy was taking special interest to handle cancer in the state and added that as part of it, they were coming up with a special road map to diagnose cancer during its early stage.

In a separate development, Rajani reviewed the prevalence of seasonal fevers virtually with the district health officials. She called for efforts to curb dengue, malaria and other seasonal fevers by setting up medical camps in places where their prevalence was more.