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At least over 160 people in Lira City on Sunday participated in the Centenary Rotary Cancer Run that took place countrywide. 

Participants aged between seven to 75 years gathered at Lira Town College playgrounds by 6:00am and opened the day with aerobics. 

The 5km, 10km and 25km runs started at 7:00 am, flagged off by Sam Atul, the Lira City Mayor, where participants ran through the streets of Lira City East and West divisions and back to Lira Town College playground. 

The event was crowned with awards of certificates to the main sponsor of the event, Centenary Bank, and other contributors, as well as the best-performing participants in different races. 

Victoria Awor Ogwal, the president of the Lira Metropolitan Rotary Club, expressed gratitude over the number of participants, saying the Lira organising team managed to raise sh5m to contribute to the national pool. 

Centenary Bank’s Lira branch manager, Felix Esiru, who represented the bank’s managing director, said cancer awareness creation should be considered a collective responsibility by all. 

Esiru said much as the number of participants was relatively small, the activity they engaged is significant in awareness creation. He called upon corporates and individuals who have not yet joined the war against cancer to do so without waiting for another marathon by dropping any amount of money at the Rotary offices in the area. 

Mayor Atul said cancer is a very big burden to the people of Lira and the entire Lango region because of the lack of awareness and inadequate capacity of Uganda's cancer facility to handle a bigger number of patients that throng the place for treatment.  

He said people only get to know that they have cancer when the disease has worsened. 

Atul testified that, two months ago, one of his constituents died of the cancer of the eye because people did not realise early and that by the time she was taken to Mulago, it was too late.  

He thanked all the individuals and organisations that participated locally in the region and called on more to get on board in the community.