Gevorg Tamamyan, Editor-in-Chief of OncoDaily, and the President of SIOP Asia and POEM Group, shared on LinkedIn:
“Today, on International Childhood Cancer Day, we stand with children and families in every corner of the world who are facing cancer – not as a statistic, but as a daily reality.
Each year, more than 400,000 children and adolescents are diagnosed with cancer globally. In high-income countries, survival rates now exceed 80%. In many low and middle-income countries, survival can still be below 30%. This gap is not a medical mystery. It is an equity failure.
World Health Organization has launched the Global Initiative for Childhood Cancer with a clear target: reaching at least 60% survival for all children with cancer by 2030. The knowledge exists. The medicines exist. The protocols exist. What must exist everywhere is ACCESS.
International Society of Pediatric Oncology – SIOP and partners around the world continue to strengthen collaboration, training, and standards of care. Regional networks across Asia, Africa, Europe, the Americas and Oceania are proving that when countries work together, survival improves.
But progress requires more than protocols.
It requires:
- Sustainable national financing.
- Access to essential medicines.
- Trained multidisciplinary teams.
- Psychosocial support for families.
- Data systems that measure outcomes.
- Political commitment at the highest level.
Children with cancer do not need sympathy. They need systems that work.
OncoDaily was built on the belief that information democratizes care. When knowledge is shared, when best practices travel faster than disease, when voices from all regions are heard – survival follows.
Today we honor:
- The courage of children.
- The strength of parents.
- The dedication of nurses and physicians.
- The scientists pushing boundaries.
- The advocates who refuse to accept inequity!
International Childhood Cancer Day is not only a day of awareness. It is a day of responsibility.
Every child, everywhere, deserves the same chance to survive – and to thrive.
Let us move from words to measurable action. Because childhood cancer is curable. Inequity is not!”
Other articles featuring Gevorg Tamamyan on OncoDaily.