World Child Cancer to partner with the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) to improve access to quality childhood cancer services across Africa
Most childhood cancers are curable. We know this because survival rates in the UK, USA and Europe regularly top 80%. But for those in low and middle-income countries – who make up the majority of the 400,000 children who will develop cancer each year – the prognosis is bleak. Their chance of survival can fall as low as 10%.
In many African countries, public and professional awareness of childhood cancer is dangerously low. Opportunities for early diagnosis are missed. Referrals are delayed. And there are not enough health workers with the specialist skills to diagnose and treat the disease.
The solution? It already exists. The challenge is making sure that every child gets the diagnosis, treatment and care they need.
In 2018, the World Health Organisation (WHO) set an ambitious goal to raise global childhood cancer survival rates to 60% by 2030. World Child Cancer is part of its taskforce, and at the heart of its strategy are the four pillars underpinning their programmes:
• Improving the quality of childhood cancer care.
• Increasing the rate of diagnosis among children with cancer.
• Providing financial and psychosocial support to families and children.
• Influencing policy and public opinion on the need to do more on childhood cancer.
At the core of World Child Cancer’s approach is working in partnership with health care providers, civil society organisations and generous donors that support children with cancer across the world.
A new partnership with the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) will support the continued development of childhood cancer services in countries where survival rates fall significantly below this threshold, and where fragile health systems (and access to them) are worsened by COVID-19.
Ayire Adongo, World Child Cancer Programme Coordinator for Sub-Saharan Africa says,
Korle Bu Teaching Hospital in Ghana [a long-time partner of World Child Cancer] is set to become a Centre of Excellence for Western Africa. It is clear what can be achieved if the right resources and support are available. We look forward to starting this partnership with SNF and building on this success in other African countries.
Harnessing new opportunities for shared learning and development, the support from SNF will allow World Child Cancer to raise awareness of, and build capacity for, childhood cancer care in Ghana, Cameroon, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, and Sierra Leone.
Every child should have access to the quality health care they need—and, as fundamentally, to the resources needed to identify serious conditions like cancer early. SNF is proud to support World Child Cancer in its goal of dramatically improving outcomes for young people facing cancer and in bolstering the human infrastructure at the heart of the health care systems in these six countries.
Find out more about how we work with partners here.
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We first met Naa in 2016 when she was diagnosed with Wilm’s Tumour at 7 years old. In 2021 the cancer returned and Naa underwent treatment again. She has battled cancer twice and is now back in school.
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