Raffaella Casolino: Positioning cancer on the global health and security agenda

Quoting Raffaella Casolino, Technical Officer at World Health Organization and Honorary Clinical Senior Lecturer at University of Glasgow, College of Medical, Veterinary and Life Sciences, on LinkedIn:

”Positioning cancer on the global health and security agenda.

At the Cancer side event during the first high level technical meeting on NCDs in humanitarian settings organized by World Health Organization and UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency we had the privilege to discuss the challenges, needs and the path forward for providing cancer care in the most challenging circumstances.

We need to work collectively to ensure that cancer becomes fully integrated into humanitarian response modalities, whether in acute emergency situations or in protracted crises. We also need to work towards building resilient health systems based on universal health coverage, to guarantee that no-one is left behind. There is a lot to do, concretely, and the meeting in Copenhagen is only the first step of a long journey together.

A heartfelt thanks from WHO Cancer Team and our Team Lead Andrè Ilbawi to Richard Sullivan for co-organizing the event and to each speaker for the enriching discussion including Tezer Kutluk, Horia Vulpe, Nazik Hammad, Nelya Melnitchouk, Omar Shamieh, Gevorg Tamamyan, Diana Paez, Alex Muller, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Miljana Grbic.

A big thanks to our sister United Nationsagency International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for partnering with us every day to improve global cancer control and particularly thanks to Diana Paez and May Abdel-Wahab for bringing the IAEA perspective at the table of the discussion.

Last, a special thanks to Slim Slama for being a driving force in this challenging area of health care and for the incredible work in the organization of the meeting and to Bente Mikkelsen for the invaluable global leadership.”

Source: Raffaella Casolino/LinkedIn