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Hanoi will offer free cancer screenings for local people aged 35 or over who have health insurance, said city mayor Nguyen Duc Chung on Friday at a meeting with the Hanoi Evangelical Church.
The city is set to launch a high-technology center for digestive surgery on Sunday, which would allow 1.6 million Hanoi residents aged 35 to 65 have a free screening for digestive cancers, said the mayor.
“The cost of the pre-emptive screening can range from $15 in Singapore to $25 in the United States,” said Chung.
“But Hanoi will cover the cost for those with health insurance. This is a breakthrough primarily aimed at improving health care services for local people,” he added.
The center for digestive health is equipped with most advanced medical devices such as 4-dimensional virtual endoscopy machines.
Statistics show the average five-year survival rate for males is currently 33 percent and about 40 percent for females. In some developed countries, the cancer survival rate has reached 70-80 percent.
Most of the cancer patients in Vietnam are diagnosed late, which results in more costly treatment and a higher death rate, according to Tran Van Thuan, managing director of a Hanoi-based Cancer Hospital K.
Vietnam records on average 150,000 new cancer cases per year, according to the World Health Organization.
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