BBC newsreader George Alagiah reveals he has beaten coronavirus despite having terminal bowel cancer – The Sun

LEGENDARY BBC newsreader George Alagiah has revealed how he has secretly beaten coronavirus – despite having terminal cancer.

The BBC News at Six veteran presenter decided earlier this month he was no longer going to be appearing in the studio amid the pandemic, following advice from doctors for those with “underlying” health conditions.

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And speaking to colleague Sophie Raworth on Tuesday’s news bulletin, he shared a heartfelt message of hope for others with cancer.

He said: “If I can live with cancer, I can certainly live with Covid-19.

“I don’t want to trivialise because I seem to have had a mild dose, but actually, the very fact that we are living with cancer I think gives us an edge.

“We’ve confronted those difficult, dark moments in our life. And in some ways, I think that we, those of us living with cancer, are stronger because we kind of know what it is like to go into something where the outcomes are uncertain.

“And I certainly feel that having had that experience, in my case six years as a cancer patient, I went into this feeling actually quite strong.”

After being diagnosed with bowel cancer in 2014, George underwent 17 rounds of chemotherapy and five operations, which docs found had spread to his liver and lymph nodes.

But it returned in December 2017 and the 64-year-old later admitted in an interview he had been told it was terminal.

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He said in an interview that the chance of survival for at least five years for those with stage four bowel cancer like his is less than 10 per cent.

After support from his oncologist and other medical professionals, George said he is now feeling “not back to normal, but certainly I feel well.”

To others suffering, he added: "All I can say is, for myself, you know, who is vulnerable to an extent, I’ve come through, and I just hope that for all those people out there, they too come through. And you know, with basically the kind of medical staff we have in this country, most people are going to be able to come through."

In an interview in 2018 he said that had he lived in Scotland, where bowel screenings start at 50 not 60 like in England, that he almost certainly would not be terminal.

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