The annual ‘National Campaign against Cancer’ has started for the eighth year in Uvs Province, which has one of the highest rates of the disease in Mongolia. The health project is being implemented across the nation by the Khan Bank Foundation, the National Cancer Hospital, and the Mongolian National Broadcaster. Under the project, locals from Uvs, Bayan-Ulgii and Khovd will receive free diagnosis for 8-10 types of cancers and get treatment.

Cancer is second leading cause of death in Mongolia; at present one in five people die of cancer. According to a specialist, the ‘high rate of cancer fatality is caused by late diagnoses. Currently, 76 percent of patients are being diagnosed in the fourth stage of the development of the disease’.

Over 115,000 people have participated in medical examinations since  the ‘Campaign against Cancer’ started in 2011.