Chernobyl thyroid cancer detection scheme at risk

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A program 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 on Tuesday.

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 7 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 screening.

“Trends show an increase in detection rates. We need to find new donors and continue to address the issue,” said Miro Modrusan, the Geneva-based federation’s desk official for the region.

Britain, the Netherlands and Japan have been the traditional donors and the federation has received about 40 percent of the 850,112 Swiss francs ($716,790) needed this year.

Its longest-running humanitarian program focuses on high-risk groups, people who were under the age of 18 when the nuclear power plant exploded in the then-Soviet Ukraine in 1986.

The disaster has been blamed for thousands of deaths due to radiation-linked illness and a huge increase in cancer levels.

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