Keepin touch

Whether you have a question, comment, suggestion or any problem in the purview of the government, send us your message and we will try to respond as soon as possible. If your problem is not in our purview, we will forward your message to the relevant institution.

The Government of the Republic of Serbia

In the service of citizens

National strategy against malignant diseases to reduce cancer rate

Belgrade, 11 February 2008

Serbian Minister of Health Tomica Milosavljevic said that the National strategy against malignant diseases is due to be adopted this year and that 120,000 people in Serbia suffer from cancer.

Milosavljevic said in an interview with daily Vecernje Novosti that 30,000 people are diagnosed with cancer every year and that 18,000 people die from cancer annually, which is a serious concern.

What will this strategy mean in practice?

The Ministry of Health participates in these programmes along with four other ministries. The budget means that you clearly plan programmes that you need to adopt, and we planned a national programme for oncology protection and screening programmes for the early discovery of cancers most frequent in Serbia. They are cervical, breast and colon cancer.

What do you expect from the strategy and the screening programme?

I expect us to summarise what’s been done so far and define what needs to be done in terms of oncology protection in the next five years at least. Our goal is to reduce the number of oncology diseases.

Do we have enough technical and staff resources to implement the screening programme?

That’s a difficult question. Screening means you discover the disease when there are no symptoms yet. For some programmes, for instance, the screening of cervical tumors, we have enough technical and staff resources. For others, we need to increase capacities, to work on educating employees, as well as to provide new equipment.

Is this the continuation of activities fighting cancer?

Yes. For example, new borns are vaccinated against hepatitis B in their first year and at age 12. One-third of those with hepatitis are in danger of contracting liver cancer one day.

What’s the situation with the reconstruction project for four clinical centres in Serbia?

I expect the Agreement of a loan by the European Investment Bank to be ratified in parliament and reconstruction projects for clinical centres in Kragujevac, Nis, Novi Sad and Belgrade to begin immediately after that. Well-known design companies that were engaged on projects for large hospitals in Europe have been selected. We will continue to renew equipment where necessary, by priority, and new jobs will be opened. In the second half of the year, we will propose laws on transfusion, transplantation and artificial insemination.