Radio New Zealand - Te Reo Irirangi o Aotearoa

New campaign starts to push breast cancer screening

Updated at 8:57 pm on 12 February 2012

A renewed push gets underway on Sunday to get more Maori and Pacific women to go for breast cancer screening.

An extra 8000 Pacific and Maori women have enrolled in the Health Ministry's free BreastScreen Aotearoa programme in the last two years.

But they are still lagging behind the national breast-screening rate of 70%.

National Screening Unit manager Jacqui Akuhata-Brown says a new television campaign targeting Maori and Pacific women aims to close that gap within two years.

She says the national breast screening rate should go up as well, because other women will also get the message.

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