Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachchan launched the world’s first mobile app on breast health, at an event organised by Ushalakshmi Breast Cancer Foundation on Wednesday.
The app named ‘ABC of Breast Health’ aims to spread awareness, providing information on breast cancer and benign non-cancer breast health issues. It has been launched in 12 languages- English, Hindi, Gujarati, Punjabi, Marathi, Bengali, Malayalam, Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, Oriya, and Assamese.
The initiative intends to empower the nation on various aspects of breast health and help people to make informed decisions.
“Since I have been associated with various health campaigns, I have realised that people have very less knowledge about such diseases and are living with many misconceptions. This app will help commoners to gain a general awareness about breast cancer,” said Bachchan, who has been associated with awareness campaigns for polio, hepatitis B, and tuberculosis.
“The opportunity to raise quality of life and healthcare through digitalisation is on the cusp of a third wave of IT adoption. It seems that ‘now’ is the time for us to go all in, on digital strategies. Understanding what patients want from digital healthcare and the best way to give it to them is vital,” he said.
The mobile application created and designed by Ushalaskhmi Breast Cancer Foundation is available in both iOs and Android versions. Its content has been generated by experts from India and abroad.
“Over the past one and half years, I have been working with missionary zeal to fulfill my vision of making available this world’s first landmark app using digital media, which has been transcribed in all the commonly spoken Indian languages in simple ‘easy to understand’ format,” said Dr. Raghu Ram, director of Ushalakshmi Breast Cancer Foundation.
The app contains a specific section ‘Myths & Facts’, which aims to dismiss common misconceptions related to breast health. After downloading the app, which is available for free on Google Play and Apple, users would receive notifications on a daily basis.
Additionally, users would also gain access to all issues of Pink Connexion- South Asia’s first quarterly breast health newsletter published by Ushalakshmi Breast Cancer Foundation and a couple of breast cancer awareness films made by the foundation.
A proposal has been submitted to the Health Ministry to consider incorporating the app in the government’s official health portal.
