With World Cancer Day held yesterday, and with our country’s growing cancer crisis, there is a deeper malaise that is more prevalent now than ever before: Our health system remains reactive rather than preventive.

The most common cancers, as with most of the diseases that affect Bangladeshis, are largely preventable, and yet we have a health system that cares too much about treatment and not enough about prevention. This is what must change. 

Prevention requires more than sporadic awareness campaigns, although those are certainly important. What is needed is serious research capacity, sustained funding, and evidence-based policymaking that truly understands the importance of preventing major disease outbreaks.

With elections a week away, the new government has a rare opportunity to reset priorities. It is time for health to be elevated to the same level of urgency as economic and infrastructure goals. 

It must be repeated that investing in public health research is never a luxury but rather a financial protection strategy. Early detection saves lives and reduces costs, and having prevention measures in place lessens the strain on already overstretched hospitals.

While Bangladesh has and must continue to show ambition in economic reforms, there is the need to show equal if not more ambition in health. The measure of the new government’s legacy, and indeed the quest to build a better and more equitable Bangladesh, will not only be in highways or export figures.

Instead, it is only when ordinary citizens can live longer, healthier lives will our ambitions as a nation will truly be realized.