Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) senior lecturer and health economist Dr Norashidah Mohamed Nor says a study in Australia has shown that having a 1% increase in total cancer death rates will lead to a 1.6% decrease in a country’s economic health or gross domestic product (GDP).
“Therefore, the increase in the prevalence of cancer, coupled with an increase in the ageing population, will reduce GDP,” she says.
The sickness can end up in huge economic costs, to the tune of a whopping RM5.17tril (US$1.16tril) from the world’s 14 million new cases every year, according to a report titled “Cancer – It’s Everyone’s Business” by the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC).
In the report published by the The Star in Malaysia, the UICC describes cancer as the world’s biggest killer, with 8.2 million people succumbing to the disease in 2012.