A programme to detect thyroid cancer in areas contaminated in the Chernobyl nuclear accident is at risk due to dwindling donor funds just as cancer rates are rising, the world's largest relief agency said yesterday.
Thyroid screening must continue in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine until 2020, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said in a statement to mark the 19th anniversary of the world's worst civil nuclear accident.
About seven million people in the three countries live in remote, highly contaminated areas, where mobile diagnostic laboratories detected thyroid abnormalities in nearly half of the 90,000 people screened last year.
The federation said 215 thyroid cancer cases were confirmed, double the figure for 2000, and that experts forecast the thyroid cancer rate would peak between 2006 and 2020.
It said it was extremely concerned that funding trends for next year and beyond would not allow for screening.