Zak with his nephew, days after his terminal cancer diagnosis

My charming son Zak died of stomach cancer at the young age of 40, 3 months after diagnosis. Zak was a kind hearted, funny and brilliant software engineer whose day job then was working on a project to help the blind, and who also volunteered for several environmental charities. 

I believe Zak’s cancer was caused by the Helicobacter Pylori bug, picked up when he was backpacking in India 20 years earlier. If only he had been warned about the dangers of this HP bug, which the WHO has declared a class 1 carcinogen, he would certainly have taken a test for it and would still be here now. Some simple information would have saved his life. But there was no information and he is gone. On behalf of Zak, I want to let others know that a cheap £7 test for HP could save their lives. 

There are about 4000 non cardia stomach cancers annually in the UK. It is thought that Helicobacter Pylori, a bacterium which infects the stomach is involved in 95% of them, (1) some directly and some in combination with other factors [2] such as the virulence of the HP strain. This cancer has a very low survival rate as it is usually without any major symptoms until the later stages when it is terminal. If we could reduce HP in the UK, many of these lives would be saved. 

HP is endemic in Asia, South America, Africa and Eastern Europe, and is mostly caught from water infected with poo. The most virulent strains [3] are found in India and East Asia. Travellers to these areas can pick it up and harbour it for years before it causes cancer. Yet we know that 20% or more, of travellers get travellers' diarrhoea, indicating that they have been in contact with contaminated water, food, or toilets, from which they would at the same time, have been at risk of HP. 

There are cheap and simple home test kits for HP obtainable from major chemist chains from £7. If people could be informed about this so that they tested on their return from certain countries, they could get cured with a 2 week course of targeted antibiotics. The human immune system cannot eliminate HP without help, so once you get it, if untreated, you have it for life. (4) 

Shockingly, NHS Health Advice for Travellers does not even mention the risk of HP (5), though it speaks at length of traveller's diarrhoea which, unlike HP, is rarely fatal. Yet although up to 3% of UK people infected with HP get stomach cancer (4), and far more get ulcers or dyspepsia or less common cancers, the govt Health Security Agency ignores the risks. It would cost nothing to include a warning about HP in the various NHS sites providing guidance for travellers. Both diarrhoea & HP are difficult to avoid however careful you are as microbes are so small.[1]

 I ask the Government to ensure that the NHS and appropriate government backed bodies include warnings about the risks of catching HP, and the availability of cheap tests, on all sites providing Health Advice for Travellers, and publish these widely wherever possible throughout the NHS.

 Please when you have signed this petition would you also email your MP asking them to:-“please press for warnings about the risks of catching HP in underdeveloped countries and the availability of cheap tests to be included on all sites providing Health Advice for Travellers, and publish these widely wherever possible throughout the NHS.”

1: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23876852/#:~:text=pylori%20testing%20have%20been%20developed,subsequent%20development%20of%20gastric%20cancer 

2: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3516022/

3 Cag A : https://gutpathogens.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13099-021-00452-2 

4:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2952980/ 

5: https://www.fitfortravel.nhs.uk/advice/general-travel-health-advice/food-and-water-precautions​ 

https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/165987/3/gutjnl-2020-320839R1%20CLEAN.pdf - Helicobacter pylori eradication therapy to prevent gastric cancer: systematic review and meta-analysis.