On the day women are marking their achievements, they are also
in urgent need of protection.
With fatal diseases afflicting more women at a younger age,
medical professor Ha Xiaoxian made a plea for a nationwide study on
women's health at the annual session of the Chinese People's
Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC),
the country's top advisory body.
"Victims of breast and cervical cancers in China have been
increasing at an alarming rate during the past two decades, and the
situation will only worsen if no precautions are taken," said Ha, a
renowned researcher of gynecological diseases at the Chinese
Medicine Institute in
Tianjin.
Statistics from the Shanghai public health bureau show that the
ratio of breast cancer victims per 100,000 women almost tripled
from 1992 to 2002.
What's more, although the most likely age of contracting breast
cancer is between 35 and 45, hospital reports nationwide are
showing that more and more women in their late 20s and early 30s
are falling victim to the disease.
"Action should be taken as soon as possible because in these
cases, time really does mean life for women," Ha said on the eve of
International Women's Day.
While victims' chances of survival diminish in a couple of
months, all it takes is 40 minutes to determine whether a woman has
got the nightmarish disease.
"The 40 minutes felt longer than four years," said Xia Xiaoyu, a
31-year-old taxi driver who went to a hospital after finding a lump
in one of her breasts.
"I couldn't help burst out crying in joy the moment the doctor
told me it was not cancer," she said. "I went to the hospital
before the lump turned into cancer."
But many other women are not as lucky. Of all cancers, breast
cancer emerged as the No 1 killer of Chinese women as early as
1992, although people have begun to pay closer attention only in
the past few years, according to Sun Qiang, director of a research
center on breast diseases at Peking Union Medical College
Hospital.
But there are no national figures on its occurrence, he
said.
According to Shanghai public health bureau statistics, for every
100,000 women in the municipality, 18 women contracted the disease
in 1992, 38 in 1997 and 52 in 2002.
As for the rapid increase in the incidence of cancer, Sun
attributed it primarily to rising pressure in urban women's lives,
to the proportion of protein and fat in their diets and to
environmental pollution.
(China Daily March 8, 2006)