Joan Burke - Board Member, Cancer Society
"The world health organization's report shows that 72% of cancer deaths occur in low and middle income countries and I'm certain that there are some people that may say that Belize is a low income well our statistics are saying that we are middle income. Regardless of where we fit in - Belize has the challenge of cervical cancer. In Belize more than 10% of deaths annually are attributable to cancer and we have our number one pathologist in the room with us who can confirm those data. For the period 2007 - 2011 we had 857 deaths occurring in Belize related to cancer - of those total 421 females and 436 males died of cancer related conditions. Sad to say that 418 of those deaths occurred in persons 65 years of age or younger and in today's technology we say that you're in the prime of your life. Significant percent of the deaths which occurred are primarily due and could be prevented by primary and secondary interventions. Of the 421 deaths which occurred among females 95 were as a result of the cancer of the cervix and 51 as a result of cancer of the breast. Available data from the Caribbean region shows Belize having some of the highest incidence rates of survival cancer."

Diane Finnegan
"The purpose of this press conference this morning is to extend an invitation to the Belizean community to sign an electronic petition to end cervical cancer in the Caribbean and Belize. The e-petition seeks to obtain 500,000 signatures from people in Belize and across the Caribbean which will be presented to the Caribbean heads of Government and Ministers of Health including Belize. Cervical cancer can be prevented but for this to happen it requires wide spread awareness, increase screening and effective prevention and control measures that include use of pap-test, HPV testing, VIA (Visual Inspection of Acetic Acid) and Vaccination against HPV."

You can visit the petition site at www.endcervicalcancernow.org to sign up and enter your information.