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{
    "id": 15004,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/15004/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 394,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Twaha",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 145,
        "legal_name": "Yasin Fahim Twaha",
        "slug": "yasin-twaha"
    },
    "content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I would like to take this opportunity to also support the Motion. I do not think there is any family in this country which has not been affected in one way or another by this terrible disease. As the Mover of the Motion said, cancer is not a death sentence. If it is diagnosed early enough, and resources are available, it is treatable in most cases. The challenge is upon us to make services available to wananchi. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, before we go to curing the disease, we also need to work on preventing it by establishing what causes this disease and educating our people on how to avoid some of the things that cause the disease. For instance, there is the hypothesis that says mobile phones might be causing cancer. Some say that the quality of the air we breathe also plays a role. There are so many vehicles on the road and there is pollution. It might be one of the reasons. Other people say that one of the causes is the pesticides that we use on our vegetables. You eat salad. You think it is the best thing yet it is sprayed with so much pesticide, which actually poisons you. So, we could avoid some of these things. Also, people need to eat well and do exercises in order to avoid these things. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, as the Member for Lari said, the three challenges that we had at Independence were poverty, ignorance and disease. I would like to differ with him on one of his points. The reason as to why we have a high prevalence of cancer is that we have succeeded in preventing and curing other diseases, and people are living longer and reaching the age at which gene mutation gets erratic and causes cancer. A few years ago, people were dying from heart diseases in their 50s. People are now reaching 60 and 70 years, the age bracket at which cancer occurs in most cases. Much has been said about our having to send money to India with our patients, or sending people to Moshi, South Africa and the United States of America (USA) for treatment. It is quite embarrassing to see our patients travelling abroad to get treated for diseases which, if we were doing the right things, we would be able to treat in our own country. The fact that the Minister himself could not get treatment within the country, and had to travel abroad to get treatment, says something about the inadequacy of our capacity or willingness to provide this service to wananchi. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I hope that has served as a wake-up call. Maybe, something will be coming out of it now that we have started the Africa Cancer Foundation. I hope that he will put this on top of his priorities, so that our people will not have to die unnecessarily. It is really not necessary for people to die from cancer, if it is diagnosed early enough."
}