KEY POINTS:
The nose hair sensation that is sweeping the nation has been heartily embraced by New Zealand defence forces overseas.
Movember, the moustache-growing challenge behind facial hair sprouting on faces all over New Zealand, has crossed the oceans to Afghanistan.
Flight Lieutenant Wayne Thomas, of the New Zealand Defence Force's Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in Afghanistan, said in a statement today nearly 100 men in the Bamyan province-based team were participating.
They joined a "significant number" of defence force personnel taking part, from Devonport to Dunedin.
Members of the team who were already moustachioed had shaven off their existing facial hair to give challengers a fighting chance.
Movember, which runs through November, pits month-long moustaches against each other in an attempt to raise sponsorship funds for and awareness of prostrate cancer.
The event has been a runaway success for the Prostate Cancer Foundation of New Zealand.
Movember organiser Chris Young said it was hoped more than $500,000 would be raised this year.
According to the foundation around 600 New Zealand men die of prostate cancer each year, about the same as the number of women who die from breast cancer.
About 3000 new cases of prostate cancer are diagnosed each year, mostly in men over the age of 55.
- NZPA
