Rate of cancer in Kuwait is 134 cases per 100,000 people

The rate of contracting cancer in Kuwait, according to statistics in 2012, is 134 cases per 100,000 people in the population, said Minister of Health Dr. Ali Saad Al-Obaidi at the opening on Wednesday of a new cancer treatment center.
The new center, called the Yaqoub Behbehani Center for Bone Marrow Transplant, is a donation from the family of the deceased whose name has been given to the center.
Health Ministry records since 1974 and up until last year show there have been about 48,000 cases of cancer registered among Kuwaiti citizens, said the minister in a speech inaugurating today's new center.
He said the ministry's bone marrow transplantation and peripheral blood stem cell transplantation programs started in the year 2000 and were instrumental in the completion of 200 transplants successfully so far.
On a related matter, he said the ministry started last April a national campaign for the early detection of breast cancer and has dedicated five centers across the country where women can go to have their breasts checked for cancer.
The new Yaqoub Behbehani center was built at a cost of KD 5 million, said the minister adding - on a different note - that the WHO will honor in a few days the Kuwaiti physician Dr. Khalid Al-Saleh, head of a radiology department, with an award for his work on Cancer and Heart Disease, given out to him as representing the East Mediterranean Region.
The minister said the WHO award was a feather in the cap of Kuwaiti physicians and health care givers.