Zambia and five other low- and middle-income countries will receive free cancer medicines for children through a World Health Organization (WHO) initiative that promises to close the gap in cancer care access.
Under the Global Platform for Access to Childhood Cancer Medicines, WHO and St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, in the US, will provide ongoing supplies of medicines to at least 5,000 young cancer patients, the WHO says.
Around 400,000 children worldwide develop cancers such as leukemia, brain tumors and lymphomas each year, according to WHO. Most of these are in low- and middle-income countries, where less than 30 per cent survive, compared to 80 per cent in high-income countries.
Catherine Nyongesa, co-founder and director of the Texas Cancer Centre in Nairobi, Kenya believes the initiative could go a long way to addressing cancer treatment gaps in developing countries, especially in Africa.
"There are huge gaps in accessibility, affordability and availability of oncology products in Africa, including facilities, diagnostic tools and drugs," Nyongesa told SciDev.Net.
She said most cancer patients in Kenya cannot access chemotherapy drugs, due to their high cost or because they simply aren't available.
"Moreover, most cancers in children are detected rather late due to lack of awareness and poor or lack of diagnostic tools and facilities, thereby making such cancers difficult to treat," she added.
Mongolia and Uzbekistan are already receiving medicines through the programme, with shipments to Zambia, Ecuador, Jordan, and Nepal expected this year. The WHO says it plans to expand to 50 countries over the next five to seven years, potentially reaching 120,000 children with cancer.
"For too long, children with cancer have lacked access to life-saving medicines," said WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in a statement.
"This unique partnership between WHO and St. Jude is working to provide quality-assured cancer medicines to pediatric hospitals in low-and middle-income countries."
The disparity in access to cancer treatment remains stark. WHO data shows that while 96 per cent of high-income countries report general availability of cancer medicines, this drops to just 29 per cent in low-income countries.
André Ilbawi, technical lead for the WHO's cancer control program, explained that market dynamics contribute to this gap.
"The smaller sizes and lower-revenue margins of markets in low- and middle-income countries, as well as their unreliability, mean that pharmaceutical companies or other relevant stakeholders do not have the incentive to develop, sell or register products in [those countries]" he told SciDev.Net.
He says the programme builds on the Global Initiative for Childhood for Cancer, which adopts a comprehensive, health system approach to caring for children with cancer, promoting community awareness and early diagnosis to ensure early access to diagnostics and treatment.
"A child's chances of surviving cancer are largely determined by where they are born, making this one of the starkest disparities in global healthcare," said James R. Downing, president and CEO of St. Jude, a world leader in the treatment of child cancer.
Downing says the programme aims to ensure no child dies "in the dawn of life".
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