‘Beat Cancer: Run and Ride 2018’, the motorcycle rally for cancer awareness campaign arrived at the Tomo Riba Institute of Health and Medical Sciences (TRIHMS) at Naharlagun on Thursday.
As part of the event at TRIHMS a five km marathon was organized, participated by students, teachers and volunteers.
The key objective of the event was to create awareness among the locals regarding cancer – its early detection and the need for collective community involvement in the fight against cancer.
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Special emphasis was laid on abuse of tobacco and unhealthy food habits (high carcinogen content in smoked meat and in other edibles) prevalent across entire north-eastern region.
Records indicate that Papum Pare in Arunachal Pradesh has one of the highest incidences of cancer in India and the major reasons for this are tobacco and infections.
According to the information available with the organizers of this awareness rally, among the population of five crore people across the North-east, 40 per cent amounting to two crore population consume tobacco and 30 per cent of them die prematurely because of tobacco consumption.
This means 70 to 80 lakh people in the region meet with premature death primarily because of tobacco consumption.
According to the organizers, if tobacco consumption can be eliminated from the region, 50 per cent of the entire cancer cases will cease to exist.
After the programme at Naharlagun, the Silchar Thumpers and their team were accorded a formal send-off for Dibrugarh from TRIHMS.