Dana Bryson, Dana Bryson, Executive Committee of Policy and Advocacy at ACT 4 Children, shared on LinkedIn:
“The medicines exist.
The treatment protocols exist.
The knowledge and networks exist.
But for too many children in low- and middle-income countries, access does not.
Some might call market shaping boring. It is anything but. It determines whether a lifesaving medicine reaches a child – or doesn’t.
This is one of the starkest inequities in global health and the focus of WHO’s new childhood cancer medicines market-shaping strategy.
Closing the gap requires reliable supply, affordable, quality-assured medicines and stronger health systems. It also requires listening to those who know where these systems fail: survivors, families and locally rooted advocates.
Lived experience is evidence. It must shape our priorities, solutions and accountability.
At World Child Cancer USA, working in conjunction Childhood Cancer International and the International Society of Paediatric Oncology – SIOP Society of Paediatric Oncology and ACT 4 Children, we believe global action and local advocacy must move together so that a child’s chance of survival is no longer determined by where they live.
Thank you to Santiago Millan and the teams at World Health Organization and to medical professionals around the globe including St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital—and especially to the thousands of survivors, families and patient advocates who helped shape this work.”
Other articles about WHO on OncoDaily.