Siri Battula - Global Efforts Senior Editor
Date Published: 03 February, 2023
In a recent publication titled “Global Breast Cancer Initiative Implementation Framework,” the World Health Organization (WHO) highlights the alarming breast cancer survival inequalities between high and low-income countries and introduces WHO’s plan aiming to reduce global breast cancer mortality. Breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths among women globally. However, large gaps exist when it comes to survival rates in high income versus low income nations. For example, high income countries’ survival rates are on average above 90%, while India’s is 66% and South Africa’s is only 40%. The main three explanations for these inequities highlighted by WHO were: 1. “late diagnosis” 2. “inadequate services” 3. “low coverage” (Global Breast Cancer, 2023). The Global Breast Cancer Initiative, GBCI, is set to “reduce global breast cancer mortality by 2.5% per year by 2040 and prevent 2.5 million global cancer deaths” (Global Breast Cancer, 2023). To achieve this goal, WHO plans to address the three primary issues identified through working on three specific targets. Firstly, WHO aims to achieve a global average of 60% of invasive breast cancer diagnoses at stage I or II. To do so, they will implement public health education across nations to further the public’s awareness of breast cancer signs and treatment, encouraging them to seek medical attention earlier. Secondly, all components of a diagnosis like evaluations or tissue sampling should be done in 60 days. This will address untimely or inadequate services through educating both healthcare workers and the public to be able to refer patients to diagnostic and treatment services when needed. Finally, the last target is establishing centralized breast cancer treatment services, with a goal of achieving a global 80% treatment completion rate (Global Breast Cancer, 2023).
WHO’s published framework addresses the need for strategies both country and resource specific. I believe the three targets outlined provide detailed enough values to measure performance and accurately predict outcomes. Taking this into account, WHO’s plan to prevent 2.5 million global cancer deaths seems plausible, drawing in stakeholders and various countries’ governments as support. This gives me hope that this framework is an opportunity to make strides in cancer treatment information and access in low-income countries, allowing us to see the same rapid breast cancer mortality decrease globally in the future that we have seen solely in high income countries over the past few decades.
References
Global breast cancer initiative implementation framework: Assessing, strengthening and scaling-up of services for the early detection and management of breast cancer. (2023, February 3). World Health Organization. Retrieved March 4, 2023, from https://www.who.int/initiatives/global-breast-cancer-initiative
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