Media Release

My child matters

The International Union Against Cancer (UICC), in partnership with sanofi-aventis, launches a call for projects in 10 pilot countries to fight childhood cancers

Geneva, 30 June 2005 - Each year, more than 160,000 children are diagnosed with cancer. Approximately 90,000 will die of their disease.

Most childhood cancers can be cured, provided prompt and effective treatment is accessible. In industrialized countries, three out of four children now survive. But in the developing world and emerging economies, children are often diagnosed too late, or not diagnosed at all, and lack access to information and life-saving treatment. Four out of five children with cancer live in these countries. More than half of these children will die.

We need to mobilise more resources in the struggle against this disease and to promote education and training, especially in prevention and early detection, diagnosis and treatment, so as to change individual and social patterns of behaviour.

Because every child matters, the UICC, in partnership with sanofi-aventis, embarks this year on a Childhood Cancer Campaign, under the banner “My child matters”.

The Campaign consists of three main components: a call for projects; a comprehensive state-of-the-art report on childhood cancers, which will be made available to the general public on World Cancer Day, 4 February 2006; and a worldwide mobilisation and awareness campaign, based on these first results, to highlight the effects of childhood cancers on children and their families.

To encourage innovative projects and the sharing of experiences, especially among developing and emerging countries, the call for projects will be launched in the following 10 states: Bangladesh, Egypt, Honduras, Morocco, Philippines, Senegal, Tanzania, Ukraine, Venezuela and Vietnam.

Funding of up to €50,000 in national currency will be available for projects selected by the UICC Childhood Cancer Campaign Advisory Steering Committee.*

These projects should raise awareness of the challenge of childhood cancers; strengthen prevention, early detection, and protocols of treatment; improve the quality of care and support for children living with cancer and for their families; or take into account more fully the social aspects of this disease.

Projects will be selected for funding based on: feasibility, providing benefits for children living with cancer and their families, and demonstrating accountability and sustainability (including possible replication of initiatives in countries with similar settings).

All institutions or organisations that demonstrate innovative and practical approaches to information, prevention, and the medical and psychosocial care and support of children living with cancer are invited to submit a project.

This call for projects marks the official launch of UICC’s World Cancer Campaign, which over the coming years will address many aspects of the fight against cancer, in response to the Charter of Paris. Adopted in 2000 during the 2000 World Summit Against Cancer for the New Millennium, this Charter called for “an invincible alliance – between researchers, healthcare professionals, patients, government, industry and media – to fight cancer and its greatest allies, which are fear, ignorance and complacency.”

*UICC Childhood Cancer Campaign Advisory Steering Committee
Dr Franco Cavalli, Chair, Advisory Steering Committee (Istituto Oncologico della Svizzera Italiana), Dr Tim Eden (International Society of Paediatric Oncology), Dr Alain Herrera (sanofi-aventis Group), Dr Jean Lemerle (Groupe Franco-Africain d’Oncologie Pédiatrique), Dr Ian Magrath (International Network for Cancer Treatment and Research), Dr Ching-Hon Pui (St Jude Children’s Research Hospital), Dr Hélène Sancho-Garnier (Centre Epidaure), Dr Eva Steliarova-Foucher (International Agency for Research on Cancer), Mr Geoff Thaxter (International Confederation of Childhood Parent Organisations).

Press office contacts:
JJ Divino, Campaigns and Communications Manager, International Union Against Cancer, Tel: +41 022/809 1878.
Caty Forget, Director, Humanitarian Sponsorship, sanofi-aventis, Tel : +33 1 53 77 48 25.

Media release (pdf)