Time is running out for people to buy bowel cancer testing kits, a Monaro service club in the New South Wales south east said.

Bowel Cancer Australia is running the Bowel Scan program and to help detect the second most common cancer in the country the kits have been distributed to pharmacies by Rotary. The program ending on Saturday has nothing to do with the Government's controversial National Bowel Cancer Screening Program.

Cooma Rotary Club spokesperson, Richard Lawson, says people are not aware of how serious the disease is.

He said, "Bowel cancer kills almost twice as many people as breast cancer, and it kills about three times as many people as skin cancer. So it's a pretty nasty thing, but caught early you can nip it in the bud as it were, and all will be well."