BBC News chief presenter Maryam Moshiri has revealed that she has been living with polycythaemia vera, a rare form of blood cancer, since a diagnosis in November 2024. Her disclosure puts a public face on a disease that can develop quietly and may be discovered before a patient realises anything is wrong.
Moshiri, 49, said the condition was found after blood tests led to further investigation. She told the BBC that she had mostly been free of obvious symptoms at the time. That is one of the challenges of polycythaemia vera, usually shortened to PV: some people feel well when abnormal blood counts first appear, while others experience fatigue, headaches, dizziness, blurred vision, night sweats or itching.
PV belongs to a group of conditions known as myeloproliferative neoplasms. In this disease, the bone marrow produces too many red blood cells. The excess cells increase the proportion of red cells in the blood and can make it more viscous, which raises the risk of abnormal clotting. Those clots can contribute to deep vein thrombosis, heart attack or stroke.
The condition is generally slow-growing. It is classed as a blood cancer, but its course differs substantially from many cancers that are treated with a finite sequence of surgery, chemotherapy or radiotherapy. For many people with PV, management is long term. The main goals are to control blood counts, reduce symptoms and lower the risk of clotting complications.
Moshiri has described a treatment path that illustrates several of those strategies. Her early care included repeated venesections, a procedure in which blood is removed to reduce the concentration of red cells. NHS guidance lists venesection as one of the quickest ways to lower red-cell levels in people with PV. Medicines can also be used to suppress excess blood-cell production, while low-dose aspirin may be prescribed for some patients to reduce clotting risk.
Moshiri later received interferon-based therapy. She has spoken about difficult side effects, including headaches, insomnia and severe itching, and said she switched in November 2025 to weekly Pegasys injections. She says the new regimen has been effective, although fatigue remains part of her life.
That fatigue has been one of the most visible themes in her account. Moshiri continued to anchor live broadcasts and travel for major assignments, including coverage from the Vatican, while undergoing treatment. She has described periods in which the exhaustion affected both her work and the time she could spend actively with her three children.
Her decision to speak publicly is tied to Blood Cancer UK's Here for This campaign, which focuses on ordinary moments lost to hospital visits, treatment and side effects, as well as those regained when care works well. The campaign also highlights a broader feature of blood cancers: illness may be chronic and largely invisible even when a person continues to work and appear outwardly well.
There is currently no routine cure for PV, but the condition can often be controlled for years. Treatment is individualised according to blood counts, age, clotting history, symptoms and other health factors. For patients and clinicians, the central task is not simply to lower a laboratory number but to keep the disease controlled while preserving day-to-day life.
Moshiri's experience is a reminder of why that balance matters. Better tolerated treatments can change more than a blood count: they can determine whether a patient has the energy to work, exercise, travel or spend an ordinary afternoon with family. Research into myeloproliferative neoplasms is increasingly focused on extending that control while reducing the burden of treatment itself.
