Bengaluru: The state government has identified cancer as a notifiable disease to facilitate planning, guidance and monitoring of the disease. Karnataka is only the third state, after Tripura, Punjab and West Bengal, to have notified cancer.
With this, all the hospitals across the state have to notify all cases of cancer to the government. The government can then draw up a proper treatment plan and plan focused research programmes to curb increasing incidence of cancer cases.
Inaugurating the World Head and Neck Cancer Day on Monday, Health Minister U.T. Khader said, “To facilitate better planning of treatment, prevention policies and research, it is important to understand the patterns of cancer at the grassroots level. For that, cancer has been made a notifiable disease.”
The government will know the incidence of different types of cancers in different regions, based on which research and policies can be implemented and screening and prevention programmes can be designed, he said. The Home Department, with the help of the National Informatics Centre, Karnataka unit, has developed state-of-the-art software to monitor the implementation of Cigarettes and Other tobacco products Act of 2003 by various departments.
Launching the software, Home Minister K.J. George said, “Cancer is a growing health concern across the world. One of the important known preventable causes of cancer is tobacco use. Karnataka is considered one of the role models in implementation of COTPA.”
