Cancer Day 2020: “Personal, collective actions, panacea against cancer”

The global community will Tuesday commemorate the 2020 World Cancer Day, under the theme: ‘I Am and I Will.’ The day is an annual international day dedicated to preventing millions of preventable deaths, by raising awareness about cancer, and pressing governments and individuals across the world to take action against the disease.

This year’s observance marks the midway point of the 3-year ‘I Am and I Will’ campaign, which acknowledges that everyone has the capacity to address the scancer burden by empowering call-to-action. The campaign urges for more personal commitment – it represents the power of individual action taken now to impact the future.

First commemorated in 2000, World Cancer Day, being led by the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC), is celebrated every February 4; it presents an opportunity to rally the international community to end the injustice of the preventable sorrow from cancer: the second leading cause of death globally, with 17 people dying every minute from cancer, according to WHO.

Nevertheless, in recent years, we have seen an increased perception of progress in the war on cancer, and renewed motivation to confront the disease. New research directions, which hold promise for a better understanding of the factors underlying cancer, new diagnostics, therapies, preventive measures, and early detection ability, are being discovered. Thus, “by raising worldwide awareness, improving education and catalysing personal, collective, and government action, we can reach the target of reducing the number of premature deaths from cancer and noncommunicable diseases by one third by 2030,” says the UN.