Assam Has Highest Cancer Cases in Northeast, Followed by Meghalaya and Tripura: Union Minister Prataprao Jadhav in Lok Sabha

Jadhav stated that NE region of India accounted for 3.6% of the country's total cancer cases over the past 5 years.

In some concerning news for Assam, Union Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare Prataprao Jadhav revealed that the state has the highest number of cancer cases among the eight states of Northeast, with a total of 41,713 cases.

Jadhav said this in a written reply to queries raised by United People’s Party Liberal (UPPL) MLA from Assam, Joyanta Basumatary, in the Lok Sabha on Friday.

Jadhav stated that Northeast region of India accounted for 3.6% of the country’s total cancer cases over the past five years.

Jadhav further stated that Assam recorded the highest cancer cases with 41,713 cases, followed by Meghalaya (3,168), Tripura (2,871), Manipur (2,250), Mizoram (2,114), Nagaland (1,845), and Arunachal Pradesh (1,143).

The union minister emphasized the findings of the CaRes NER multidisciplinary initiative, which was carried out by ICMR-NCDIR and involved a monitoring survey on the region’s health system response and cancer risk factors.

Using a sample of 23,040 adults over 18 years, this study examined key indicators related to cancer and other non-communicable diseases (NCDs) across 12 population-based cancer registries in eight northeastern states.

Several central govt initiatives are in place to improve healthcare access and affordability, including the establishment of a state cancer institute in Assam and tertiary cancer care centres in Tripura, Mizoram, Nagaland, and Sikkim.

To address cancer and other major NCDs, the national programme for prevention and control of non-communicable diseases (NPNCD) was launched by the central govt’s department of health and family welfare in 2010.

“Under the programme, 115 district NCD clinics and 326 community health centre NCD clinics have been established across the northeastern states,” Jadhav said.

Meanwhile, the Assam government and Tata Trusts is establishing a comprehensive cancer care network in the state with at least 17 cancer hospitals coming up in different districts of Assam under the Assam Cancer Care Foundation.

Nine of the 17 cancer hospitals are already operating and the remaining eight will be completed by 2026.

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