As part of the activities lined up for the ongoing World Breast Cancer Awareness Month, the City of Kigali is set to deploy thousands of community healthcare workers as it takes the fight against the deadly disease to the grassroots.

The volunteers, key in delivery of public healthcare services at the community level, will be going from house to house demonstrating how one can self-diagnose with view to identifying any possible symptoms of breast cancer.

Self-examination of breasts has been found to be effective in detecting some of the early symptoms of breast cancer, such as a palpable painless lump in the breast, hard mass, or change in the colour, shape or size of breast. Other symptoms could include puckering of skin around the nipple, persistent itching around the nipple, sudden bloody discharge from the nipple, and palpable swellings in one or both armpits or above shoulder bone.

This is a commendable effort and people should pay attention to these demonstrations so they can properly carry out self-diagnosis regularly.

Nonetheless, this should by no means be interpreted as an alternative to clinical breast exam. Knowing what to look out for during routine self-exam should only enable us to pay more attention and notice any unexplained developments or pain that should lead to a hospital visit before it’s too late.

In Rwanda, official figures show that 52 per cent of breast cancer patients seek medical attention when the disease has advanced to stage 3 and has potentially spread to other organs.

Indeed, early detection is essential for any successful treatment.

While breast cancer has recently become more fatal, claiming hundreds of thousands of lives annually around the world, there is hope if people embrace early screening for the disease.

There are higher chances of effectively treating breast cancer, if it is detected early, and indeed many survivors were lucky due to early screening.

Notably, while women face a higher cancer susceptibility, men are not spared either. In fact, men are said to be at a higher risk of death than women when they develop breast cancer due to biological factors. Therefore it is critical that everyone regularly screens for breast cancer, both through self- and clinical examinations.