Maryam Moshiri, one of the BBC’s most seasoned news presenters, has revealed that she has been diagnosed with blood cancer.
In interviews with BBC News and The Times of London, Moshiri said that she is living with polycythaemia vera, a rare but treatable blood cancer.
Moshiri, 49, was diagnosed in November 2024 after her doctor was “fastidious” about blood tests. Moshiri said she “mostly” had no symptoms, though the condition can cause headaches, confusion, dizziness, and blurred vision.
Polycythaemia vera is manageable with treatment. Moshiri has received “debilitating” rounds of venesection, which involves bloodletting. She has also received immunotherapy.
The cancer can thicken the blood, increasing the risk of developing blood clots that can lead to strokes, heart attacks, or deep vein thrombosis.
“It’s been two years since my diagnosis and I’ve felt that I’ve started to understand the disease a lot better and the way it affects my life. I’ve got a handle on it to a degree now, so I felt it was really important to raise awareness,” Moshiri told BBC News.
On the venesection treatment, she said: “In about a space of five months, I had venesection seven or eight times. So you can imagine my iron levels hit the floor and I felt even more exhausted.
“After a while, I started feeling extremely unwell and tired. I started losing my hair, I got itchy all over my body, but the main symptom was fatigue.”
She continued: “It’s the kind of fatigue that is not like I’m just tired and I didn’t get a good night’s sleep, you feel like someone has removed your battery completely, and however much sleep you get makes no difference.”
Moshiri has continued to work over the past two years, traveling overseas to anchor BBC News, including spending time in Qatar at the start of the U.S.-Israel war with Iran.
“Even though I feel the best I have in two years, I don’t know how I’m going to be in six months, one year, two years,” she said. “People with PV have a higher chance of stroke, heart attack or DVT, so it’s something I always have to be aware of and make sure I mitigate.”
