Four Pakistani hospitals are finalising preparations to receive free, quality-assured childhood cancer medicines before the end of 2026 under an agreement between Pakistan and WHO. The deliveries through the Global Platform for Access to Childhood Cancer Medicines aim to improve access to treatment for children across Pakistan, where more than 8,000 new paediatric cancer cases are diagnosed each year.<\/p>\n
Hospitals visited by an international mission in August 2025 have been implementing recommended upgrades and protocols, while a second mission from 30 January to 6 February 2026 assessed seven additional centres that aim to be ready to receive supplies in 2027. In February 2026 WHO and St. Jude Children\u2019s Research Hospital experts visited Noori Hospital in Islamabad to assess readiness and provide technical recommendations.<\/p>\n
Pakistan formalised participation in the Global Platform on 29 July 2025, becoming the second country in the Eastern Mediterranean Region to join the initiative co-founded by St. Jude and WHO in 2021. UNICEF will handle procurement and delivery of medicines to Pakistan, while WHO and partners support technical guidance and operational capacity at federal and provincial levels.<\/p>\n
The programme seeks to offer free-of-cost medicines to all hospitals treating childhood cancer in Pakistan and sets an ambitious target to raise survival from the current 30% to 60% by 2030. Limited access to treatment remains a principal barrier to survival compared with 80% survival in higher-income countries.<\/p>\n
“Every child has the right to receive quality cancer treatment, regardless of their economic status, where they live or who they are. No child affected by cancer should die because of a lack of access to treatment. WHO is fully committed to working side by side with Pakistan and partners to save lives and leave no child behind,” said WHO Representative in Pakistan Dr Luo Dapeng.<\/p>\n
Globally an estimated 400,000 children develop cancer each year, with close to 90% living in low- and middle-income countries where survival rates remain below 30%. The initiative in Pakistan combines an uninterrupted supply of childhood cancer medicines with technical support to strengthen the health system and expand access to quality treatment and medicines.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Four Pakistani hospitals prepare to receive free childhood cancer medicines in 2026 under a WHO agreement to expand access and save lives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":16925,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pakistan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16926"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16926\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}