Dammam-October has been linked to the pink ribbon that raises breast cancer awareness; Saudi Arabia has committed to this call by holding annual awareness programs on the disease.

The regional Early Diagnosis of Breast Cancer Awareness Campaign has kicked off at the King Fahd University Hospital in Khobar, which represents the Kingdom in a partnership including Jordan, the UAE, Qatar, Palestine, and Saudi Arabia.

Professor Fatima al-Melhem, the head of the regional campaign, said that the King Fahd University Hospital has been adorned in pink for the second year in a row to become the first government establishment interacting with this occasion in cooperation with the concerned authorities.

She told Asharq Al-Awsat that this year’s campaign will include participants in competitions from many Arab countries and revealed that the University of Dammam has become Saudi Arabia’s representative in the region on early detection.

Melhem pointed that Arab women are more exposed to this disease than their European and U.S. counterparts; as per cases in Saudi Arabia, the professor noted that the breast cancer rate in the Kingdom is not high and that it variates among regions.

The Ministry of Health has provided the needed details on the disease and its early detection screenings on its official page on Snapchat; a testing campaign has also been launched in a clinic at Hayat Mall in Riyadh; it is dedicated to women above 40.

The ministry has also launched an awareness campaign as part of the Kingdom’s participation in celebrating Breast Cancer Month. It has revealed that mortality rate from Breast Cancer has declined since 1990 in the developed countries because of the adoption of early detection screenings and that the survival rate has reached 97%.

It added that this year’s campaign includes the joint efforts of many Arab countries for the purpose of unifying the message addressed to Arab women and encourage them on prioritizing themselves by undergoing early detection screening.