This year’s San Marino initiatives for Pink October, the international month dedicated to breast cancer prevention, will be dedicated to the memory of Mariella Mularoni. The announcement was made before Commission IV by the Director General of the ISS (Istituto per la Sicurezza Sociale, the Social Security Institute), Claudio Vagnini, at the close of a lengthy hearing with the Institute’s Executive Committee.
Mularoni died at the end of May at the age of 63, after a long illness, while serving as Secretary of State for Health, Social Security, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities, a post she had held since July 2024. On 1 June, the Republic observed a day of national mourning. A secondary school English teacher since 1987 and a member of the PDCS (Christian Democratic Party) since 1994, she was a long-serving Councillor and had served as Captain Regent from 1 October 2019 to 1 April 2020: the dedication thus falls on the very same date, seven years on, that she took office at the Palazzo Pubblico.
The campaign comes at a moment when prevention has returned to the centre of political debate. Secretary of State Massimo Andrea Ugolini reiterated before the Commission that “prevention remains a priority,” and the Institute’s calendar is filling up: on 6 October, the relaunch of the Salute Donna (Women’s Health) programme will be presented, followed on 23 November by the launch of a lung cancer screening programme, while the Cardio 40 programme, colorectal cancer screening now brought forward to age 45, and free hepatitis C screening are already under way.
Vagnini himself, however, acknowledged that “much less than what should be done” is currently being achieved on the prevention front. Hence the proposal for a more structured ISS presence in schools, an idea that found support from the Director of Health and Social-Health Activities, Alessandro Bertolini: “Health education costs relatively little, but represents an enormous investment.”
