February 4 is an international day marked World Cancer Day to raise awareness of cancer and to encourage its prevention, detection, and treatment.

World Cancer Day aims to save millions of preventable deaths each year by raising awareness and education about cancer and pressing governments and individuals across the world to take action against the disease.

World Cancer Day is led by the Union for International Cancer Control to support the goals of the World Cancer Declaration

Following the World Cancer Day, health experts are calling for concerted efforts both individual and collective responsibility to accelerate the fight against cancer that is still a major killer.

In Kenya, cancer cases have been increasing over the years, putting a strain on the country’s health sector and economy.

According to the 2018 GLOBOCAN report by the World Health Organizations International Agency for Research on Cancer, approximately 47,887 people get the disease annually in Kenya while 32,987 die from it yearly.

This is an increase from the 41,000 cases and 28,000 deaths recorded six years ago.

GLOBOCAN is a project of the International Agency for Research on Cancer that provides estimates by cancer site and sex using the best available data in each country and several methods of estimation.

The Health Ministry however, insists that it is committed to tackling cancer and has devolved healthcare that has brought diagnosis services closer to the people.

With increasing deaths, costs of treatment are also still over the roof.

Last year Ksh1 billion was spent by the National Hospital Insurance Fund.

Treating cancer can be anything between Ksh120,000 and Ksh2.5 million, depending on the type.

Dr Joseph Kibachio, who heads the Non-Communicable Diseases Division in the Ministry of Health says the government is working round the clock to fight cancer and other  non-communicable diseases.