Activity Report
Support for Chernobyl by NagasakiUniversity and the NGOs
NagasakiUniversity
NagasakiUniversity, led by its School of Medicine, commenced direct support for Chernobyl victims in the affected areas in May 1991. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the University has conducted medical examinations in the contaminated areas in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine.
NagasakiUniversity’s medical support for Chernobyl has been constant. From 1991 to 1996, it examined 160,000 school children in and around Chernobyl, compiling data on120,000 of them, demonstrating a markedly high concentration of thyroid abnormalities, particularly infant thyroid cancer, in the state of Gomel in Belarus. The University has also been conducting joint research into the development mechanism of thyroid cancer, and other topics, with BelarusianStateMedicalUniversity, GomelStateMedicalUniversity (Belarus), the Ukrainian Institute of Radiology, the Ukrainian Endocrine Institute (Ukraine) and ObninskMedicalRadiologyCenter (Russia).
JapanChernobyl Foundation (JCF)
The Japan Chernobyl Foundation (JCF) was founded in January 1991 to save the lives of Chernobyl-affected children. Its main area of support is medical care in contaminated areas in and around Chernobyl.
JCF has undertaken infant thyroid cancer diagnosis/treatment and blood disease projects, dispatching a total of 83 delegations of medical professionals, providing medical knowledge, medicines, medical equipment and instruments. JCF has also invited Belarusian physicians to Japan for training in medical treatment. It has also coordinated peripheral blood stem cell transplantation in GomelStateHospital by physicians of ShinshuUniversityHospital.
As PR activities in Japan, JCF organizes photography or painting exhibitions, seminars and lectures; co-organizes film shows, and holds information meetings featuring reports by delegations that have visited the affected areas, or on the status of Chernobyl-caused damage. It also publishes the journal Ground Zero.
In 2004, JCF expanded the sphere of its activities to Iraq, providing continued support for children with leukemia, whose number has starkly increased since the Gulf War.
Sasakawa Memorial Health Foundation
The Sasakawa Memorial Health Foundation was established in 1974, for the purpose of eradicating Hansen ’s disease (HD) worldwide, with Mr. Ryoichi Sasakawa, founder and first chairman of the Nippon Foundation as president and Professor Morizo Ishidate, “father of chemotherapy for HD” in Japan (also Professor Emeritus, University of Tokyo; first Dean of the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences) as Chair.
As the needs of the times have changed, the Foundation has undertaken various other programs of international cooperation toward health and medical care for parasitic diseases, Buruli ulcer and HIV/AIDS, as well as medical scholarships for China.
The Chernobyl Sasakawa Health and Medical Cooperation Project is one such program, inaugurated in 1990 when Ryoichi Sasakawa decided to provide humanitarian support through the Foundation at the request for assistance from then Soviet President Gorbachev. During the 11-year period of the Project, the Foundation contributed medical vehicles, equipment, reagents and other materials necessary for health surveys and Hibakusha health maintenance and medical treatment. The Foundation also sent a total of 450 experts from Japan for instruction in diagnosis and provided training in Japan and trainees’ countries to a total of 230 Belarusian, Russian and Ukrainian physicians and technicians.
The Project, completed in March 2001, contributed greatly to Hibakusha medical care necessitated by the Chernobyl disaster.
