PADAWAN: The Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (Unimas) in collaboration with Kumamoto University Japan, will carry out a community service project to provide free blood cancer screening and blood test in Padawan area.
This was announced by the chairman of Padawan Municipal Council (MPP), Lo Khere Chiang during the press conference at MPP Meeting Hall, yesterday.
“This project was strongly supported by the MPP and it will involve home visits that will be carried out by the Associate Professor Dr. Kuan Jew Win and her team consisting of the nurses, to the selected houses in MPP area,” said Lo.
According to Kuan, the team will explain the services that will be provided and perform health interview, health check and take blood sample to check blood parameters and blood cancer gene namely BCR-ABL1 after obtaining consent of the relevant residents of the selected houses.
“Unimas medical team will inform the blood test result to the owner of blood sample and provide appropriate medical consultation if needed,” she said.
Chronic Myleoid Leukemia (CML) is a type of blood cancer, caused by blood cancer gene BCR-ABL1, with the progress of the disease is divided into early phase (Chronic Phase), middle phase (Accelerated Phase), and late phase (Blast Crisis).
“If the disease is diagnosed at early phase, almost all the patients can have near normal life span by taking oral medication to control the disease progression.
“Unfortunately, the early phase of CML usually does not have any symptom and common blood test checking blood parameter might be mildly abnormal leading to high chance of missed diagnosis.
“A special and expensive blood test, for the detection blood cancer gene BCR-ABL1, is able to detect the early phase of CML and monitor the disease’s progression,” she said.
She also stressed that the cost of the blood cancer gene BCR-ABL1 test is about RM600 per test and Sarawak does not have a facility to offer this blood cancer gene test locally.
“However, under a research collaboration between Unimas and Kumamoto University, Unimas is now able to serve the community via this project, to benefit Sarawakians by having the facility to perform this blood cancer gene test,” she said.
There are six selected areas namely, RPR Batu Kawa Phase 2, Taman PRC Jalan Batu Kawa – Matang, Kampung Serumah, Kampung Pesang, Taman Hua Yan, and Taman Sri Makmur, which 12 houses in each area will be selected randomly.
“We estimated about 200 persons with the age of 18 and above to be check during this project,” Kuan said.
Also present are Dean Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Professor Dr Ahmad Hata Rasit, Deputy Dean (Postgraduate and Research) Associate Professor Dr Asri Said and MPP deputy chairman, Datuk Ahmad Ibrahim.
The public can contact Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Unimas at 082-581000/581388 for any enquiry about this project.
