PARIS (AFP) - US singer Alicia Keys and fashion designer Stella McCartney launched a new breast cancer awareness campaign on Monday (Oct 2) aimed at African-American women who have much higher mortality rates than white women.

The British designer, whose mother died from breast cancer in 1998, will give a percentage of the proceeds from a new pink lingerie set to the Memorial Sloan Kettering Breast Examination Centre in Harlem which provides free testing.

Keys said in a campaign video: "This really resonates with me because I was brought up in Harlem and my mother is a breast cancer survivor."

Statistics have shown that African-American women have a 42 per cent higher chance of cancer mortality from breast cancer than white women due to lack of access to early screening and prevention programmes.

McCartney, in Paris for her label's fashion week show, said: "Sadly I lost my mother to breast cancer 19 years ago. She didn't meet my children."