Breast cancer survival rates in high-income countries far exceed those in low-income countries, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).
WHO said in a report announcing the Global Breast Cancer Initiative that survival five years after diagnosis now exceeds 80 percent in most high-income countries, compared with 66 percent in India and just 40 percent in South Africa.
The premature deaths and high out-of-pocket expenditure that arise when breast cancer services are unavailable or unaffordable result in social disruption, impoverishment, family instability and orphaned children and also threaten economic growth.
The Global Breast Cancer Initiative has a mandate to reduce global breast cancer mortality by 2.5 percent per year until 2040.
‘Although we have seen substantive progress in reducing breast cancer mortality in many high-income countries during the last two decades, little progress has been made in low-and middle-income countries’, Director of the Department of Noncommunicable Diseases at WHO, Dr Bente Mikkelsen, said.
‘The higher mortality in these lower-income countries is a result of late-stage diagnosis and inadequate access to quality care. Together, we can address this unacceptable inequity’.
More than one out of every six deaths in Africa and other parts of the world is due to cancer, according to the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC).
The establishment of WHO’s Global Breast Cancer Initiative follows a steady escalation in the recognition of breast cancer as a public health priority during the last decades.
The health body said through the initiative, it will provide guidance to governments on how to strengthen systems for diagnosing and treating breast cancer.
Also, an evidence-based technical package will be provided to countries, linked to online learning platforms and other types of support, and rolled out over the next year.
‘The package will incorporate existing WHO cancer tools and products to promote an integrated approach across cancers and to strengthen health systems more broadly’, it said.
Source: WHO
Photo source: USAID in Africa
