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IAEA / CANCER TREATMENT
STORY: IAEA / CANCER TREATMENT
TRT: 1:47
SOURCE: IAEA
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGES: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: JANUARY 2011, VIENNA, AUSTRIA / FILE
FILE – DATE UNKNOWN, SRI LANKA
1. Various shots, patients waiting in oncology ward
JANUARY 2011, VIENNA, AUSTRIA
2. SOUNDBITE (English) Yukiya Amano, Director General, International Atomic Energy Agency:
“World leaders are getting more and more aware of this issue. Developing countries are not alone. They have lots of friends and there are lots countries and people who are supporting these countries.
FILE – DECEMBER 2009, NATIONAL HOSPITAL ABUJA, NIGERIA
3. Close up, glass window and physician examining a cancer patient
4. Close up, radiotherapy equipment
5. Med shot, control panel of radiotherapy equipment
6. Close up, control panel of radiotherapy equipment
7. Close up, damaged radiotherapy machine
JANUARY 2011, VIENNA, AUSTRIA
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Krishnan Suthanthiran, Founder, Cure Foundation:
“I have been in health care for four decades. I have seen the good, bad and the ugly side of medicine. I feel that it does not matter how much you spend, often you do not get the right treatment. The private health care is focused so much on making lots of money and the government health care often is inadequate. My goal is to create something that is as good as a private health care, or even better, but truly non-profit.”
FILE – 2010, TANZANIA
9. Med shot, patient being treated at Ocean Road Cancer Institute in Tanzania
10. Med shot, female patient’s back and face during radiation treatment
11. Med shot, control panel of radiological equipment
12. Med shot, doctors discussing patients’ medical history
JANUARY 2011, VIENNA, AUSTRIA
13. SOUNDBITE (English) Krishnan Suthanthiran, Founder, Cure Foundation:
“I have been in health care for four decades. I have seen the good, bad and the ugly side of medicine. I feel that it does not matter how much you spend, often you do not get the right treatment. The private health care is focused so much on making lots of money and the government health care often is inadequate. My goal is to create something that is as good as a private health care, or even better, but truly non-profit.”
FILE – 2010, KENYA
14. Med shot, patients waiting in hospital in Kenya
15. Med shot, female patients waiting in hospital in Kenya
FILE – DECEMBER 2009, NATIONAL HOSPITAL ABUJA, NIGERIA
16. Med shot, Chief Consultant of Radiology and Oncology with two medical staff
17. Med shot, Chief Consultant Radiology and Oncology with two medical staff and cancer patient
The World Health Organization (WHO) predicts that within six years, cancer’s death toll in developing countries will exceed that of HIV and AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria combined.
Yet many countries in the developing world lack even one radiotherapy machine, which is used in curative treatment and to reduce pain in advanced cancer patients.
SOUNDBITE (English) Yukiya Amano, Director General, International Atomic Energy Agency:
“World leaders are getting more and more aware of this issue. Developing countries are not alone. They have lots of friends and there are lots countries and people who are supporting these countries.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is now working with its business partners to encourage the development of more affordable radiotherapy machines desperately needed in the battle to subdue the developing world’s cancer epidemic.
Krishnan Suthanthiran, President of Best Medical International and founder of Cure Foundation, partnered with IAEA to deliver high quality, low-cost healthcare in countries in Africa and Latin America. He believes that the key is to “make technology more optimal.”
SOUNDBITE (English) Krishnan Suthanthiran, Founder, Cure Foundation:
“We are trying to make technology more optimal. What is happening is that people tend to make technology too complicated; too many bells and whistles, but you really do not use them.”
Today, Cure Foundation has donated equipment to Tanzania and Nicaragua, thereby doubling both countries´ cancer treatment potential. The donated equipment were produced at one-third of their current price, a reduction from USD3 million to USD1 million.
Suthanthiran’s goal is to create a truly non-profit healthcare – one as good as a private system.
SOUNDBITE (English) Krishnan Suthanthiran, Founder, Cure Foundation:
“I have been in health care for four decades. I have seen the good, bad and the ugly side of medicine. I feel that it does not matter how much you spend, often you do not get the right treatment. The private health care is focused so much on making lots of money and the government health care often is inadequate. My goal is to create something that is as good as a private health care, or even better, but truly non-profit.”
Cancer sufferers in Africa face particular difficulties, for 17 IAEA Member States have no cancer radiation therapy centres and another 20, only one each. According to WHO, Africa also has fewer than five per cent of the world´s specialized health care workforce, insufficient to handle the incidence of this deadly disease.
Africa needs an additional 3 000 cancer care professionals over the next 10 years to deal with the cancer epidemic. But under existing infrastructure and educational systems, training such a number is all but impossible.
The IAEA, through its Technical Cooperation programme, delivers training, provides technical expertise and tailored support to Member States using nuclear applications to diagnose and treat cancer.
World Cancer Day (4 February) was initiated in 2005 by the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC). It falls this year in the lead-up to 19–20 September 2011, United Nations General Assembly High-level Meeting on the Prevention and Control of cancers and the three other deadliest types of noncommunicable diseases - cardiovascular diseases, chronic respiratory diseases and diabetes.
These four diseases cause more than 60 percent of all global deaths, equivalent to more than 35 million annually.
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