The need: Childhood cancer in the developing world 

Over 300,000 children worldwide develop cancer each year. If the  illness is detected early enough, many of these children can be cured -  as many as 80% of children with cancer in the developed world survive.  However, in developing countries, survival rates can be as low as 10%.  In addition, many children are dying without effective pain relief. 

Our solution 

World Child Cancer believes inequality in cancer treatment should not  exist and that every child, regardless of where they live, should  receive the very best possible treatment and care and be able to realise  their ambitions and dreams. We improve diagnosis, treatment and support for children with cancer,  and their families, in the developing world. We achieve this via our  twinning partnerships between hospitals and healthcare professionals in  the developing world and those in the developed world.  We also support  treatment costs for the lowest income families, provide ward equipment,  fund essential staff posts and, more recently, have started providing  holistic care for children and their families. 

Our programmes

We currently support children with cancer in Africa, Asia and Central  America. We deliver eight programmes of work across nine countries. We  work directly in Bangladesh, Cameroon, Ghana, Malawi, Mexico, Myanmar  and the Philippines and support a collaborative Wilms' tumour project in  sub-Saharan Africa (Cameron, Ghana, Ethiopia, Malawi and Zimbabwe).