There’s a way to enjoy the summer sun and still do something for the less fortunate: get involved with Tour of Hope 2009.
On its second year, Tour of Hope is actually an information campaign about cervical cancer through cycling. The five-day cycling event will start in Alabang, Muntinlupa City on May 24 and end in Camarines Sur on May 28.
Taking the Southern Luzon route, the tour will cover 500 kilometers of the country’s scenic countryside including Tagaytay,Lipa,Lucena, Daet. In every stop, there will forums on cervical cancer to be participated in by personnel of the Philippine General Hospital Cancer Institute and Bravehearts, a non-government organization Bravehearts dedicated to raise awareness on
cervical cancer prevention.
This year’s bikers will be led by sports enthusiast Jeena Lopez who is a champion wakeboarder. “I was immediately attracted to the idea of Tour of Hope – no competition, just a bike ride to make people around aware of their health. Being a woman in her 30’s and the reality that cancer or any other illness may not be so far away, it is always important that we have an attitude of prudence when it comes to our health. I believe in preparing one’s self for any battle, through awareness, information, and vigilance,” she said at the recent launching of the Tour of Hope ’09 which has as its motto, “Dare to be Bold.”
Jeena Lopez will be joined by Team David’s Salon, the Philippine’s first all-women multi-sport team, dedicated to promoting sports and sharing a passion for health and wellness to fellow women.
David Charlton, CEO of David’s Salon Institute and the team’s title sponsor would like to encourage more Filipinas to go out for sports and join events like these as “It’s fun and good training and at the same time, it will help save lives of women all over the country.”
How can those who cannot bike be part of this noble undertaking? You can pledge a donation for a biker. Like P1,000 for every kilometer that a biker covers. If you pledge P100 for a certain biker, after the end of the 500-kilometer tour you would be able to help the cause with P50,000.
“Every kilometer traveled by The Tour of Hope bikers represents a world of difference to every Filipino woman who is at risk of succumbing to the second leading killer cancer among women,” said Lo-Ann Villanueva, group product manager of GlaxoSmithKline, manufacutrer of Cervarix, a vaccine for cervical cancer and the main sponsor of Tour of Hope.
Every two minutes, one woman dies of cervical cancer around the world. In the Philippines, 10 women die everyday of this disease.
Cervical cancer is caused by a persistent infection with cancer-causing Human Papilloma Virus (HPV). However, a simple infection may take 10 to 30 years to progress to cancer, which gives woman ample time to visit her doctor to learn preventive ways to combat this killer disease.
At the Tour of Hope launch, Dr. Cecilia Ladines-Llave, chair of the UP-PGH Cancer Institute and director of the Cervical Cancer Prevention (CECAP) Network Program, stressed that a woman who is not screened for cervical cancer is five times at risk for developing this disease.
CECAP advocates the Single-Visit Approach (SVA), which combines screening and treatment in one visit. It uses an effective,low-resource screening method called the Visual Inspection of the cervix with Acetic Acid (VIA), a simple technique that uses vinegar to detect precancerous lesions on the cervix and requires much less equipment and time investment than a PAP smear. When necessary, treatment is done through cryotherapy, a process where the areas with lesions are frozen using a common liquid coolant like carbon dioxide, effectively eliminating the abnormality and preventing possible progression to cancer.
Among the 8 CECAP sites located all over the country, nearly 15,000 Filipinas were screened and 179 women who were discovered to have precancerous lesions were appropriately treated. With the continued partnership with other concerned agencies, CECAP envisions to build more sites in order to provide quality cervical cancer screening services to more women.
Getting vaccinated is one way to help prevent cervical cancer. GlaxoSmithKline’s Cervarix helps protect women against two most common cancer causing HPV types, 16 and 18, and has also shown efficacy against persistent infection caused by 12 other cancer-causing HPV types beyond HPV 16 and 18, thus affording broad protection against cervical cancer.
Designed to last for both young and mature women, females from 10 years old onwards can be vaccinated using GSK’s cervical cancer vaccine- especially now that the price has been reduced by as much as 60%, making it more affordable and accessible to more women in the Philippines.
This year, Maldita, Metro Magazine, Health Today, Personi-fi and SM have joined as sponsors. Lectures will be held in SM Lipa, SM Lucena and SM Naga. With these lectures, the Tour of Hope is also about empowering women because with information, a person is empowered.
For tour details about the Tour of Hope, please contact Joyette Jopson of Team David’s Salon at 0917-882-7352. For sponsorships, donations or bike pledge inquiries, you may contact 780-9898/ 713-8144 or email ttoh_phil@yahoo.com or visit http:// thetourofhope2009.multiply.com.
Aba, e maganda at mura lang pala ang mitigation ng cervical cancer. Isang boteng Datu Puti at isang pindot sa fire extinguisher na CO2 lang screened ka na. Kung may pera ay pabakuna ka.
Kung yun bang perang ninakaw ng gobyerno dito ginamit, 10 babae ang maililigtas araw-araw sa kamatayan.
Mahirap magkasakit, lalo yang may aparatong gagamitin at mahal pa ang gamot. Yung mga mahihirap, sa dasal na lang at mga dahon-dahon umaasa, paano na sila?
Kahit napakaingat mo, mamanahin mo naman pala, wala ka ring lusot. Ang maiiwasan mo lang na sakit ay yung gaya ng pag-iwas sa mga masasamang pagkain.
Gaya nitong ibinibenta ng kapitbahay kong si Bro. Pete Tiamzon na Ludy’s at Yummy Peanut Butter. May salmonella pala. Kawawa naman, ipinasara na kanina ng DOH yung factory niya dito. Marami na namang mawawalan ng trabaho dito sa kalye namin.
TonGuE-tWisTeD Says in an earlier EllenBlog: “this is the only political blog where you get to interact with the most diverse collection of Pinoys… with the common patriotic vision to see this country become great again.” I echo the assessment despite the reality of Pareto’s rule (80/20) that some posts stray beyond civil norms and use ad hominems. That is par in any community and so tolerable. What is intolerable, to my mind, is the insidious intrusion of Big Pharma.
An example is the moribund Cycling Sport. Formerly sponsored then abandoned by Big Tobacco as incompatible (smoking incapacitates athletic ability), Big Pharma greedily grabbed the chance to be the shining knight.
But there are dissenters. “Tour of Hope: Biking enthusiasts will go on a tour for a cause from Vigan to Subic from Sept. 13 to Sept. 17 to raise awareness and funds for the prevention and control of cervical cancer in the Philippines. At the launching of “Tour of Hope”, the head of the Philippine General Hospital Cancer Institute gave an overview (read promo) of the cervical cancer situation in the Philippines. The Tour of Hope is co-sponsored by GlaxoSmithKline Philippines
The hype follows a familiar pattern. First the scare of dire disease, then the plug for treatment (or else) and lastly the drug for cure.
…“every eight minutes a Filipina dies of cancer. When a woman dies of cancer, you not only lose a mother, a wife, a sister, but one who may even be a breadwinner of the family. Although detectable through pap smear, the incidence and mortality rate of cervical cancer has remained unchanged for the past 30 years The reason for this, is two-thirds of the time, the woman is diagnosed very late when nothing can be done anymore.“
Finally, the plug for the healing drug (for prevention). Chronic exposure to the HPV leads to the development of cervical cancer. A vaginal examination and Pap Smear every 3 years by an OB-Gyn specialist may detect early stage of the cancer, which makes it curable. Read more at http://tinyurl.com/da57v4
Good luck and the very best wishes to the people behind the Tour of Hope.
Young women are extremely fortunate where I sit – girls/young women up to the age of 18 can have the total of 3 vaccines required against cervical cancer for only 30 Euros or for what I think is less than 500 pesos(?).
Actually the 3 vaccines cost a whopping 300 euros but the State pays (taxpayers’ money) for 270 Euros so the girls/young women need only to dole out a total of 30 Euros.
Mr. Tongue,
Ang pinaka-incurable na kanser ay mismong nasa loob ng malakanyang. Isang kawan pa nga sila, eh. mag-anak.
Marami ngang nakapaligid na virus na handang magsanggalang laban sa anumang matutuklasang gamot pamuksa upang masawata ang mag-anak na kanser.
Just to prove that the Malacanang crooks are trying to destroy the opposition personalities; they now are charging Erap and Binay for gun totting when they traveled to Cebu for their regular “Lakbay Pasasalamat” tour. A replica of machine gun was displayed on their open vehicle when they toured the street. What’s wrong? What’s the big deal? If I were Erap and Binay, I would reason that the toy was meant to discourage criminal elements from harming them. Case is closed.
Anna, you are lucky that the State subsidizes a lot of your medical needs. That’s one thing that citizens of underdeveloped and developing countries like the Philippines do not enjoy.
I put the Philippines under “developing”, which we have been since time immemorial and until…. we don’t know.
That’s also the problem of the US. Obama prefers Universal Health Care similar to European countries and Canada.
Ellen,
The State can do that here for the simple reason that we pay enormous taxes, I mean just unbelievably enormous income taxes — sometimes it makes me really angry because the taxation rate has become so unreasonable. People who only earn the minimum wage don’t pay income taxes at all, matter of fact they receive a plethora of subsidies, makes me sick (housing allowance, electriciy allowance, child care allowance, etc., etc., not available to those who pay high taxes); they also avail of exactly the same health care as those who pay very high income taxes.
Did you know that we have a stupid, idiotic, moronic wealth tax here, i.e., if your accumulated assets total to a lil more than 700K Euro, (I mean 700K Euros!!! Shit, not even a million Euros!!!) anything beyond will be levied a wealth tax! Completely moronic; we pay enormous solidarity tax (in aid of the poor), etc., etc., etc., — anyway, just gets my goat because often you find people who prefer to be on the dole than to work!!!! After all they receive state dole outs, absolutely 100% health care (nothing to pay whatsoever even for major, very major medical hospital treatments), free, absolutely free education (and free canteen for children coming from minimum wage earners while my children have to pay a whopping amount)…
Sorry, can’t stop ranting when it comes to taxes (just gets my goat), just wanted to say that BE was spot on! In matters of social health care, the US is clearly underdeveloped. You die if you ain’t got cash in the US to pay for health care.
And bureacratic services are lousy because civil servants can’t get fired and this makes me angry!
Today, I had a run in with a post office employee who was so slow — my dog was tied at the entrance and it was raining hard and I told the guy, to hurry up, after all, I’d been there for 10 minutes waiting for him to paste the bloody stamp on the parcel and you know what he said?
“Be patient! I’m doing my job as best as I can, besides, what’s the hurry?”
The guy was just so stupidly slow! I told him, “Look, if you cannot do the job of putting the stupid stamps on a parcel in 2 minutes, you clearly are doing your job badly and if you can’t do it well, you oughta get fired! There are hundreds of unemployed people who are more qualified than you for this job!” (Gosh, sometimes, I can’t stand the Belgians, bloody slow people, the slowest people I’ve ever met in Europe they remind me of bank tellers and supermarket employees in Manila! Heh!)
Breast cancer on the night shift (breast cancer compensation): Denmark becomes the first country to consider breast cancer an occupational disease.
http://tinyurl.com/cdw7lp
Anna, so Filipinos are not alone in their sufferings with lousy bureaucrats.
You know, every time I enter a government office, I pray for patience and understanding because I know I would need abundance of that to get me through whatever I need from them.