Global Cancer Problem

In this session of the Global Cancer Movement, initiated by OncoDaily, Bente Mikkelsen, Former Director of the NCD Department at the World Health Organization, explores the urgent need for a global cancer movement and its role in addressing cancer as a public health issue. The virtual event, held from December 6-8, 2024, gathered experts to discuss the challenges and solutions for improving cancer care globally.

Thank you very much. And it was already great being here. And I want to start with congratulating the Onco Daily.

I think what you have built now in really being a daily news channel for a global cancer movement is really something we all should cherish. And I was amazed to see the long speaking list for these three days as well. So it is already a success.

But I think when we speak about the global cancer movement, we should really bring cancer as a public health problem. There is a lot of things going on in cancer, and I see it in my own home country, Norway. It’s precision medicine, it’s, you know, deep diving into new drug regimes with known and new molecules.

But I think to create this global movement, we really need to put the horizon higher. And this was also some of the points that Andre mentioned in his intervention. So I would like to just dwell on this a little bit.

So I think to create this movement, it goes without saying that we need to have all hands on deck, we need to have the people lived and affected by, we need to have the researchers, we need to have the innovators, we need to have the implementers in the countries. And we of course, need the member states to give the right priority, and also to chime in on commitments that is measurable. So I think it has never been an opportunity like the next 12 months, we will have the global status report on cancer from WHO.

And this is a golden opportunity for member states to strengthen their commitments. And that can be done in many ways, without going cancer by cancer. I really encourage you to listen to the ideas of building on the cancer initiatives, integrate what we have of problems and challenges in colorectal into what we are building in the frameworks.

But of course, also keep the specificity of any cancer, because we know there are specificities that needs to be addressed. So what does it take to create a global movement? And I think we are in a good way already, we have come a long way. If we look back on the NCD decision in 2011, 14 and 18, it was very little mentioning of cancers, we do not have a specific cancer target of the NCD targets, and we have very few indicators.

We have with the renewed best buys, several cancer interventions, both on prevention side and on management side. But what does it take to build a global cancer movement? First of all, to define this as a public health problem. Secondly, really to provide the global leadership that is needed.

And how do we do that? And I think the demonstration from Andrej Bavis is excellent. We need the data, we need to be able to address the inequities, we need to really also assess the access to care through universal health coverage, but probably also down to the level of facility-based indicators in the pathways of cancer. We cannot shy away from addressing inequities, which was also mentioned.

The second is that we need to have some normative work that is at the level of public health interventions. So of course, we need all the different technical products that is developed by academicians all over the world, but there are some few of them that we need to highlight and need to showcase, like we have done in cervical cancer elimination initiative, where we have the 90-70-90 targets, and also normative work that underpin these targets. We also need to support countries, and I like the graphic there, Andrej, where you had this strict lady with the scissor, because we cannot do everything.

And we need to support the countries who ask for advice. And this is, of course, a big role for WHO, but it will also be a big role for all those that are part of the global movement. So I want to highlight in the closing that I looked at the five pillars of the work of the global movement of cancer, which we all are part of today.

And I really liked the bullet point. So if you have time, go and look at the webpage that is sort of supporting this event today. High quality cancer care accessible, and it cannot be differentiating towards any different connotation.

We need to have access for all. Cancer research must have high priority, but I would also say that we need to support the researchers to choose also among different topics. As was mentioned, there are big research gaps when it comes to implementation, for example.

We also need to be aware of the special patient populations, which was also one of the slides that Andre showed. And we should involve the people that are at risk and are affected by. I would like to add, we will go nowhere if we are not including everybody else.

And we also have a view on how to finance this. So I thank you for the opportunity and very happy to be in this meeting. I will be listening carefully to the meeting as well.

Thank you very much.