Chennai (India CSR): AstraZeneca India Private Limited, the services arm of AstraZeneca, a leading science-led biopharmaceutical company, today announced the expansion of its flagship CSR initiative- Ganga Godavari Cancer Screening Programme to Tamil Nadu in collaboration with its partner Udhavum Ullangal, a public charitable trust.To flag-off the initiative in the state, first screening camp was organised in Tirunelveli in the presence of key dignitaries including Mr Vishnu IAS, District Collector, Dr Ravichandran -Dean, Tirunelveli Medical College Hospital, Mr. Ramkumar, Director NCCC, along with few cancer survivors.
This project initiative is aimed at enabling early detection of oral, breast and cervical cancer especially in women from poor below poverty, under-resourced communities across the country. Alongside, it is focused on creating awareness about cancer at large and its symptoms that could possibly trigger early detection leading to timely treatment. Highlighting the need of such an initiative, Gagandeep Singh, Country President AstraZeneca India said, “Ganga Godavari Cancer Screening programme is a mission to bring down the burden of cancer by building large scale awareness and encouraging detection in early stages. If you analyse the cancer burden in the country, you will find that the incidence of cancer amongst women is more than what is in men. This means that somewhere there is a gap in reaching out to women and educating them about the disease and how it can be manged well if caught early. With this initiative, we are working to not just detect but also encourage due medical intervention amongst patients and counselling amongst people at risk”.
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In the state of Tamil Nadu, a series of camps (close to 300) are planned to conduct cancer screening for 9000 beneficiaries and create cancer awareness for 30,000 people from Tirunelveli and surrounding districts. Talking about its expansion to the state, Siva Padmanabhan, Managing Director, AstraZeneca India Private Limited (AZIPL) said, “The initiative has seen tremendous acceptance and success in the past 3 years across multiple states and we are glad to bring this to Tamil Nadu with Udhavum Ullangal. With this initiative, we aim to reach low-income communities of the state where access to healthcare is a serious constraint and impacts the quality of life. We are constantly working towards a future where everyone has access to knowledge on disease-prevention, quality healthcare and solutions for treatment”.
The initiative was first launched in the year 2019 and has covered multiple states in its previous phases including Maharashtra, Kerala, Uttar Pradesh etc. Despite multiple lockdowns during COVID-19 in the past two years, the programme has touched more than 6000 women and found about 200 positive suspects who have been referred to the partner hospitals for further tests and treatment.
Mr.Shankar Mahadevan Founder Trustee of Udhavum Ullangal, said, “We are happy to be associated with AstraZeneca for the Ganga Godavari cancer screening programme. The key aspect that is important to make a sustainable impact through such initiatives is focus on strengthening and activation of community systems, continuous counselling at community level to support women in overcoming social barriers and collaboration with local organizations and medical institutes. Though this is a challenge, we can help in targeting the population that have limitations to access and afford healthcare and ensure that they are part of this programme. The programme helps in creating awareness through health education in the community and robust follow up to ensure referral for treatment.”
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Mr Vishnu IAS, District Collector said, “Cancer accounts for about 9.3 mn deaths due to NCDs globally. In India too, the burden of NCDs is much higher than what is seen from infectious diseases except for what we have witnesses due to coronavirus in the past two years. But we parallelly and collectively need to focus on bringing down the burden of NCDs in the country as it poses a bigger threat in the years to come. Under the NPCDCS programme, the state has created a robust framework to methodically build community level awareness on health issues such as Cancer. An initiative such as Ganga Godavari will surely complement the efforts of the government and we hope to see more and more organisations join hands towards this national objective of tackling non-communicable diseases better”. He also shared that the District administration will extend all support for this need-based project.
(India CSR)
