A new UN-partnered project to distribute essential childhood cancer medicines has begun in Uzbekistan and Mongolia, the first rollout for a project due to be piloted in six countries, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday.
Around 400,000 children are diagnosed with cancer every year and most of them live in low-income countries where medicines are either unaffordable or unavailable, resulting in an overwhelming 70 per cent death rate.
In high-income countries, more than eight in 10 children who are diagnosed survive.
“The platform is now set to close this gap”, said Dr. Andre Ilbawi, Technical lead of the WHO cancer control programme.
The UN agency’s goal – working with leading US paediatric facility St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital – is to reach 50 countries where needs are greatest, providing medicines to treat 120,000 children with cancer in the next five to seven years. Although it is an ambitious goal, it is achievable, Dr Ilbawi told journalists in Geneva.
“This marks the beginning of a global movement to provide children with cancer the medicines that they need, regardless of where they live, or their ability to pay”, he insisted thanks to the Global Platform for Access to Childhood Cancer Medicines.
