Fact sheet — the health crisis: cancer patients' hardships deepen under COVID-19
It is not easy to have cancer — harder still in Gaza, blockaded for 14 years. More than two million people live in the world's most densely populated place without a radiotherapy unit or PET-CT diagnostics to determine how far a cancer has spread.
- Author
- The editorial team
- Date
- 2020-10-19
Overview:
- It is not easy to have cancer — and it is harder still when you are from the Gaza Strip, under blockade for 14 years. More than two million people live in a place known as the most densely populated in the world, without a radiotherapy unit or PET-CT diagnostic imaging to determine the cancer's spread; in addition, other means of diagnosis and anti-cancer medicines are unavailable — and where available, scarce — and do not always meet the needs of those whose lives are at risk.
- In Gaza about 120–130 new cases are discovered monthly; the total number of cancer patients was 8,326, distributed among men, women, and children, over the past five years (2014–2018).
- Females are the higher share (55%), males about 45%. Breast cancer is the most common type (75% of all cancer cases) and holds first place among women's cancers; colon cancer is the most common among males, representing 13.5% of male cancers. The most common childhood cancer among children was leukaemia (26.2%).
- The most common cancer deaths among the general population were bronchial and lung (16.9%), colorectal (11%), and breast (10%).