After heart problems, cancer is the second highest killer in Russia. Last year alone, it claimed almost 300,000 lives – the cancer mortality rate in the country is 30 per cent higher than in the EU. And now, the Russian government is introducin

Russia's new cancer programme will provide over a billion dollars to make treatment more accessible.

Specialists say they will focus on prevention.

“Our main task is to develop oncological alertness among different specialists, so that they could send their patients to professionals in regional cancer centres in time,” says Olga Krivinos, healthcare organisation director. “They will be created within the new programme. And we also need to raise cancer awareness among patients.”

The screening programme will reveal that the number of people suffering from cancer in Russia is much higher than previously recorded.

But it will mean a much greater percentage of them will be able to successfully fight the disease through early treatment.

Lyuba Serova fought and beat cancer. She was diagnosed with leukaemia early on – and received immediate treatment in one of the best cancer centres in Russia.

“I was shocked to find out that a lot of hospitals simply don't have any blood thickening agents or plasma,” Lyuba says. “I did not have such a problem. I was provided with everything I needed. A lot of people were delivered to our hospital from regional ones in a very bad condition simply because they didn’t get a blood transfusion in time.”

However, Lyuba is among the few very lucky ones.

“The main problem we face in our centre is not the lack of equipment or staff, but the late diagnosis,” chief doctor Rimma Savkova says. “If patients come to us with early stages of cancer they do not need expensive chemotherapy or medicines. They can be simply treated with surgery. We have a field mammalogy centre that diagnoses women in the regions and we've managed to significantly increase the early diagnosis of breast cancer.”