AstraZeneca extends its cancer screening programme for Tamil Nadu women

CHENNAI: AstraZeneca India Private Limited, the services arm of AstraZeneca, on Wednesday announced the expansion of its flagship CSR initiative -- Ganga Godavari Cancer Screening Programme -- to Tamil Nadu in collaboration with charitable trust Udhavum Ullangal. Close to 300 camps are planned in TN for cancer screening for 9,000 beneficiaries and create cancer awareness for 30,000 people from Tirunelveli and surrounding districts.
To flag-off the initiative in the state, first screening camp was organised in Tirunelveli in the presence of dignitaries including district collector V Vishnu, Tirunelveli Medical College Hospital dean Dr Ravichandran, NCCC director Ramkumar along with some cancer survivors. The project initiative is aimed at enabling early detection of oral, breast and cervical cancer especially in women from poor families. It is also focused on creating awareness about cancer and its symptoms.
“Ganga Godavari Cancer screening programme is a mission to bring down the burden of cancer by building large-scale awareness and encouraging detection in early stages. If you analyse the cancer burden in the country, you will find that the incidence of cancer amongst women is more than what is in men. This means that somewhere there is a gap in reaching out to women and educating them about the disease and how it can be manged well if caught early. With this initiative, we are working to not just detect but also encourage due medical intervention amongst patients and counselling amongst people at risk," Gagandeep Singh, country president, AstraZeneca India, said.
“The initiative has seen tremendous acceptance and success in the past three years across multiple states and we are glad to bring this to Tamil Nadu with Udhavum Ullangal. With this initiative, we aim to reach low-income communities of the state where access to healthcare is a serious constraint and impacts the quality of life. We are constantly working towards a future where everyone has access to knowledge on disease-prevention, quality healthcare and solutions for treatment," Siva Padmanabhan, managing director, AstraZeneca India Private Limited (AZIPL), said.
The initiative was first launched in 2019 and has covered multiple states, including Maharashtra, Kerala and Uttar Pradesh, in its previous phases.