Last year more than four million people were diagnosed with cancer in China. A further three million died from the disease – that’s more than 8,000 people a day, ABC Australia reports.
China has around 20 percent of the world’s population, but more than 27 percent of worldwide cancer deaths. It’s not surprising that cancer has been the leading cause of death in China since 2010.
Lung cancer remains the biggest killer, and is rising across the country: since the last decade, the number of cases has increased by 50 percent in Beijing. Even more shockingly, some industrial provinces have seen a four-fold rise in lung cancer.
In a report in the American Cancer Journal for Clinicians, Chinese academics claimed that lung cancer rates were expected to rise, and named pollution, chronic infections and smoking as the primary causes.
In total, lung cancer has increased by 306 percent from 1973 to 2012, finds the Tumour Hospital in Heibei. While China does not have the highest rate of lung cancer in the world – this unfortunate title belongs to Hungary – it is one of the few places where the number of cases is rising.
[Image via Storify]
